


Captain of Mordor

by draylon



Series: Captain of Mordor [1]
Category: Lord of the Rings (Movies), Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-05
Updated: 2012-05-05
Packaged: 2017-11-04 21:15:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draylon/pseuds/draylon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post War-of-the-Ring, Captain Shagrat (an Orc) finds himself slashed with Faramir of Gondor.<br/>It's a tale of: ‘boy meets / loses / finds / runs away again from / Uruk,’ inclusive of the usual elements of kidnapping, swearing and violence you’d expect in a story of this sort.  The content is unlikely to be suitable for people who are not great Orc enthusiasts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Audience with an Uruk

The townsfolk had caught an Orc.

They were baying for its blood and even at some distance from the settlement, their howls and cries, and the noise from the angry lynch mob that had gathered inside the city gates was clearly audible. The racket abated somewhat as royal procession made its way closer and by the time their horses were clip-clopping into town across the market square, most traces of the earlier hubbub had all but vanished. News of their impromptu approach had doubtless preceded them.

Much as he would have preferred to avoid the ceremony of a formal reception, Faramir, Prince of Ithilien realised that now this would be quite impossible. A number of local dignitaries, among them the Mayor himself, were standing in line in the middle of the town square, waiting to welcome him. 

An unseasonably mild and damp spring was the cause of Faramir’s unscheduled visit to the town. The state coach, a conveyance in which Faramir was now obliged to travel whenever he was in pursuit of his official duties, was lying broken-down on the rain-rutted roads at least ten miles behind them. The vehicle was bedecked with velvet upholstery, stucco mouldings and varnished woodwork to a most impractical extent, and Faramir had not been at all sorry to escape its ornate excesses. Breghaus, one of Faramir’s most trusted aides was explaining their transportational difficulties to the townsmen and greeted him formally, as the Prince approached. 

One of the members of the welcoming committee started visibly, on hearing Faramir addressed by his royal title. The townsman’s first impression had been of a pleasant featured, if nondescript-looking young man, too careworn to be a person of note, and as such he had overlooked Faramir completely. Surreptitiously, he now eyed the unlikely Prince of Gondor up and down, noting the simple cut of his clothing and taking in dirt of the road that lay on Faramir’s mud-bespattered leggings and his plain woollen cloak. Faramir had seized the chance offered by the faulty state coach as an excuse to travel as he once had done, riding on horseback, and to dress himself in the garb he had worn as a Ranger in Ithilien. It was, however, beginning to occur to him that in his comfortable riding-clothes, the figure he was cutting could be said to lack certain elements of princely dash and panache. Having a lifetime’s worth of experience behind him at mostly failing to make the grade, Faramir stood up straighter and squared his shoulders a little, reacting quite unconsciously to the disapproval he had detected in the burgher-master’s gaze. 

“It seems our visit to your town falls alongside a festival, or some day of celebration,” Faramir said, mainly to break the awkward silence that had fallen around them. “We heard no small commotion from some distance away!”

“Stage-managed, your Highness,” one of the dignitaries told him. “The situation was always well under control. It was the work of that man there.” He indicated short, red-faced individual, who was lingering a short distance from the welcoming party.

“He is naught but a travelling showman, my liege,” the Mayor blustered hurriedly. “A purveyor of freaks and oddities. He has a brightly coloured bird that speaks with a man’s voice, in a heathen language of the Southern Lands. And a monkey from the dusky jungles in the East, which dances on a chain. The Barker peddles simple tricks and amusements, made for simple folk. He is a harmless visitor.”

Parrots that talk and trained monkeys, thought Faramir, without much interest. “I believe I heard mention of an Orc,” he said. 

Uninvited, the Barker, who had been watching – and apparently eavesdropping, from across the marketplace, sidled closer to the group. “Genuine Orc straight out of Mordor,” he said. “I’ve got one of them big soldier-Uruks from off of the Black Gate. Little piece of modern history. Could be your last chance to see one, guv’nor,” he continued, obsequiously addressing Faramir himself. “It’s getting so there ain’t very many of ‘em about, these days. Floor show’s tomorrow night in the tavern, if you’re interested, Sir.” He pointed to a large, slightly dilapidated hostelry on the other side of the town square. It was the building in which the royal party were planning to spend the night. 

Faramir had not seen an Orc close-to since he had been the leader of an ill-fated sortie out against the Enemy during the Siege of Minas Tirith, more than 18 months previously. Scouting parties still occasionally reported distant sightings of Orcs, and Uruk-sign from the farthest reaches of the Southern Mountains and by all accounts the great beasts seemed continually to be on the move, always heading south and east. And as the Barker had correctly noted, since the end of the War and especially following the Great Winter that had come after it, even these reports were becoming more and more scarce. 

Faramir had to admit that his curiosity was piqued. There was, however, no use in considering it. His party would be moving on the following morning, and there could be no delay. “I would be most interested in seeing your exhibit,” he told the Barker, “and I thank you for your offer. But I must decline, for we will be leaving before tomorrow night.”

“Seeing as you’re a gentleman of taste and a connoisseur and what have you,” the Barker said, “if you was to come back a bit later on, kind Sir, I’m sure we could arrange for you to step in with my Orc for a minute, to have a look. I’m sure we can work something out. Just give me an hour or so to get him settled down and such, all right?”

“Orcs. A scourge and a pestilence,” one of the Burgher-masters spat. “Every last one of those filthy, despoiling creatures ought to be routed out. For the sake of Gondor!” The speaker was the same man who had registered doubt and incredulity over the disparity between Faramir’s travel-stained appearance and his exalted royal status. Faramir shot him a sharp look. Orcs had indeed been a scourge and a pestilence for many decades, throughout the border region that lay between Gondor and the Land of Shadow. The War had however been over for some time and a call to control Orcs at this stage was very much akin to closing a stable door after the resident horse was long gone. But evidently feelings still ran high; though Faramir knew that this particular remote, south-western corner of Gondor had never directly been affected by Orcish activities. Faramir sighed wearily to himself. He supposed that an upswing in misplaced nationalistic feeling would always have been an inevitable consequence of the return of the King.

The Mayor of the town and his welcoming committee were politely concerned that a visit from Faramir to the Barker’s exhibit might be seen as inappropriate, but as Faramir appeared set on the idea, in the end they were reluctant to try too hard to dissuade him. Moreover the royal party’s unexpected visit had thrown the town councillors into a frenzy of excited disarray; being eager to show off their town to its best advantage, they had an ad-lib schedule of entertainments for the rest of the afternoon and evening to plan. Faramir being otherwise occupied for an hour or two would be something of a godsend to them.

So, at the appointed time, Faramir made his way to the tavern. He was met by a beetle-browed, heavy-set fellow – apparently one of the Barker’s employees - who had the look of hired muscle about him. He accompanied Faramir out through the alehouse kitchens and into the tavern’s rear courtyard, to where the Orc was residing in a securely locked, but otherwise ramshackle lean-to. The tavern’s back room was obviously more often used for storage purposes. There was an unhealthy chill in the air, and a pervading odour of dampness and mildew, the mustiness probably emanating from the half dozen or so empty, mouldering ale casks that were piled haphazardly just inside the door. A single, tiny, square window under the eaves of the roof let in almost enough light to see by. 

Noting that the wooden floor was rotted through in many places, Faramir trod carefully as he entered the stock room. The Doorkeeper followed him closely, and as Faramir’s eyesight adjusted to the gloom, something he’d taken to be a loosely piled heap of rags and rubbish that was lying against the back wall shifted slightly, revealing itself to be the Orc – a large Uruk Orc, in fact - that he had come to look at. The Orc raised itself up to bask briefly, warming itself in a stray ray of sunlight that was beaming half-heartedly in through the cobwebbed windowpanes.

Faramir took one look at the storeroom’s lonely occupant and experienced a lurching sensation of heart-felt joy, mingled with overtones of absolute, screaming horror.

“Leave us,” Faramir told the Doorman, abruptly. 

The Doorman blustered that it wouldn’t be safe, it wouldn’t be right, for him to leave a customer alone with a vicious, dangerous, untrustworthy Orc.

“I’ll pay extra,” Faramir said, staring with fixed intensity at the Uruk. He handed his coin-pouch to the Doorman. “Take whatever you think appropriate.”

A quick clinking sound accompanied the partial emptying of Faramir’s purse. It weighed considerably less when the Doorman returned it, but Faramir did not notice. He would not have cared even if he had done, for he was fully absorbed in studying the Orc.

His right eye was missing. On that side, four great, parallel scars scored down the Uruk’s face and neck, perhaps explaining that loss, and the empty eye-socket had become skimmed over by a flat flap of skin. A piece of his ear was gone too, and his long nose looked as if it had been broken again and reset carelessly at some point. But still the profile was unmistakeable. He was much thinner, and even lankier than Faramir remembered, and even though he’d always had a haggard, world-weary sort of a look about him, overall the years had most definitely not been kind. Just now he looked ill, he looked tired, he looked gaunt.

“Shagrat,” Faramir said.


	2. Old time's sake

The crouching Uruk uncurled himself further, having to turn his head to glance up at Faramir, who was satisfied to note a flash of shock along with the look of recognition he saw in the Uruk’s expression. He continued to watch Faramir sidelong, warily.

“How are they treating you?” Faramir asked at length, keeping his tone brisk.

“Mustn’t grumble,” said Shagrat, and with some effort, he clambered awkwardly to his feet, swaying slightly as he stood upright. He was favouring his left leg heavily, and seemed unable to rest much weight on his right foot. Faramir, who was intent on searching Shagrat’s face, feeling, as he looked at him, a bewildering mix of combined eagerness and loathing, did not notice any of this.

“He fleeced you,” Shagrat said. “That doorkeeper. I’m not usually worth half that. Not even a tenth as much - and that for an entire bleedin’ audience, to be honest. He took you for a soft touch, you know.”

Faramir nodded, his attention still fixed fully on the Uruk. Shagrat seemed so very much older, than he had done before. Somehow, more vulnerable. Easily breakable, and the realisation of that unnerved Faramir more than he cared to admit. “I’m not concerned about the doorman,” he said.

“You’re a man of means, now, eh?” said Shagrat.

Faramir nodded again. “In many ways I am. Yes.” His situation had changed drastically since he’d last seen Shagrat, and then had been radically altered once again, a rather short time ago - but this was not a subject he had yet spoken about with anyone, least of all a Mordor Uruk.

“Did you see it when that blasted mountain went up?” Shagrat said, suddenly. “Talk about fireworks. Never seen anything like it. Lit up the whole sky for a day and a night. But later it – it loused the weather up something rotten, didn’t it?”

“No,” Faramir replied, “I did not see it myself. I was – indisposed.” While Mount Doom, the volcano that Shagrat was talking about had been erupting, Faramir had been lying in a fever-haze of delirium caused by the injuries he’d sustained during the siege of Gondor. Recollections of that time were still excruciatingly painful for him.

“Don’t want to talk about old times?”

“No, I don’t,” said Faramir, with some feeling. Possibly it had been a mistake for him to think of raking over past, unfortunate events. “Perhaps it would be better if I go,” he said.

“Wait a bit, won’t you,” Shagrat said, “I’ll be for it if the Gaffer thinks I’ve been upsetting the paying guests. They’ll be knocking off for lunch in a minute. Maybe - maybe we could have a proper talk then,” he added hopefully. 

“Won’t they be coming in to feed you as well?”

Shagrat smiled at him oddly, not replying, and shook his head, jerking his chin at the doorway behind Faramir. Fully absorbed in revelling in the compelling – repulsive – presence of Shagrat as he had been, Faramir hadn’t noticed that the burly Doorkeeper had stepped up again, and was standing at his back.

“What are you up to this time, Captain fucking No-Mark?” the Doorman spat at Shagrat. He strode across the room and kicked Shagrat’s right leg out from under him. The Uruk fell down, clutching at his injured limb.

“Are you giving this nice gentleman any of your fucking lip?” the Doorman picked him up, grabbing a handful of the rags at the scruff of Shagrat’s neck and shook him. Faramir winced to see the once-proud Uruk Captain hanging limply in the Doorman’s grip. He appeared to be too weak to resist, and shortly the Doorman threw him down again in disgust.

As the Uruk floundered at his feet, the Doorman kicked him once, then twice. Shagrat tried to protect himself by rolling into a ball. Faramir stared on, shocked, completely at a loss, and the Doorman struck Shagrat again.

“That’s enough!” Faramir heard himself blurting out. The Doorkeeper paused for a moment, looking sharply at him.

“I paid for time alone with this miscreant,” Faramir said, putting every bit of stately authority he had in him behind the statement. The Doorkeeper, though he did not seem particularly impressed by this shrugged his shoulders and aiming a last, hefty kick at Shagrat as a parting shot, sauntered out.

Faramir bent down to help Shagrat up, and after a moment’s hesitation, the Uruk, very surprised, took the hand that Faramir was offering him. Stumbling slightly, he leant a little of his weight against Faramir, who recoiled from him at once. Shagrat went down again, gasping in pain.

Faramir knelt beside him. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Not too steady on my pins,” Shagrat muttered, not looking at him.

Faramir reached over to tug the rags that covered Shagrat’s right leg aside, and saw that his upper ankle and the lower part of his shin had been broken and were setting themselves poorly, twisted out of line. The flesh there was deeply scarred, and was dark with blood and inflamed-looking. Irritably, Shagrat twitched his garment back into place and Faramir noted that the index and middle fingers of Shagrat’s right hand, like his right eye and ear, were also missing, cut away at the first knuckle and the quick, respectively.

“As you see a few pieces of me have been whittled away, since last we met,” Shagrat said, very dryly. “For my sins.”

“For your sins?” Faramir exclaimed. “It seems a wonder, then, Shagrat, that there remains anything of you left at all.” He paused. “What happened?” 

“Fell on a bear trap, late last Autumn,” Shagrat replied. “It never did heal right. Hurts a bit in winter, now and again.” 

“Only in winter?” Faramir said.

Shagrat grinned at him, or at least moved his mouth so he was showing all his teeth. “No use in complaining, is there?” he said. 

Faramir stared at the battle-scarred old Uruk in dismay.

“Changed days, eh?” Shagrat said.

Despite all that had been done, to his land and his countrymen by the servants of Mordor, Faramir could not help but feel a flicker of pity, on seeing the plight of his former enemy. Appalled, he stamped down on the emotion at once, feeling shocked at his own weakness. He knew he had no excuse for lingering here in conversation with this evil, unnatural creature. He realised that he had sought to assist Shagrat, and had even intervened, trying to protect him – slipping easily, so very naturally, back into old bad habits. Faramir knew only too well the folly that resulted from thinking of Orcs and Uruks in terms of anything other than the Enemy. This could not be allowed to go any further. He stood up hastily and turned away from Shagrat, preparing to leave.

“Goldilocks,” Shagrat called after him, breaking off quickly and biting his tongue. Faramir stopped short, just inside the doorway.

“Faramir,” Shagrat muttered, “I mean, ‘Faramir’.”

“What do you want?” Faramir said, over his shoulder. 

“Lend me your arms, eh? Faramir? Just for – old time’s sake.”

Faramir turned back to him. Old time’s sake.

“Lend me your sword,” Shagrat said. “Two minutes, that’s all I need.” 

“If you think I’m going to help you, in some ill-conceived escape plan –“

“No,” sighed Shagrat, interrupting him, “two minutes is all I need to fall on your sword, Goldilocks, so’s I can finish myself off. You can watch me do it if you like,” he added, a little desperately, when Faramir did not reply. “Look - you can hold the blade steady for me yourself, if you want.”

Faramir watched him for a moment. The Uruk seemed deadly serious. “Out of the question,” Faramir told him.

“Pass me that side-dagger you’ve got on your belt, then. I like the jewel-encrusted hilt, by the way. It’s very shiny. Nice.”

“It was a wedding present,” Faramir replied, automatically.

“A dagger, as a wedding present?” Shagrat began, incredulously. “Everyone knows knives are bad luck. Who would want to give anyone a dagger for a wedding present? Unless – ah. Dwarves. Some short-arsed king-under-the-mountain would do it. Am I right?”

He was quite correct, but Faramir did not reply. He sat down next to Shagrat again.

“So, you’re married now. You surprise me.” Shagrat said, easily. He paused. “Tell me, who have they married you off to, Faramir?” he asked. “Which noble maiden of Gondor finally landed you? Funny that. You always said you never thought Gondorian girls had enough get-up-and-go about them.”

Thinking about his wife Eowyn, Faramir winced again, inwardly. She’d had enough get-up-and-go about her, all right. Soon after their woefully brief honeymoon period had ended, she’d gotten up and gone, straight back to her peoples’ homeland in the North. An inability to withstand the rigors of the Gondorian summertime climate was the official explanation for her absence, although Faramir suspected that the real reason was something rather different.

“My bride is not from the realm of Gondor,” Faramir said. “In point of fact, she hails from the principality of Rohan.”

“Rohirrim?” Shagrat spluttered. “You haven’t. Well you know what they say about the people of Rohan. They do it with horses, you know. They all do everything with horses, you must have found that out by now.”

Faramir smiled thinly, not really listening to what Shagrat was saying. He was concentrating all his attention on keeping an even, open expression on his face, because Shagrat had always been able to read him, just like a book. 

“And you’re a family man, these days, are you? Pipe and slippers by the fire of an evening, and all that, eh?”

Tersely, Faramir asked Shagrat what he could possibly know about ‘all that’.

“Well, I –“ Shagrat began, uncertainly. “Well I don’t know, really, but I did see this woodcut, once. Patrol got it off the body of one of those Tark ranger –” he broke off, looking uncomfortably at Faramir. “Never mind about that,” he muttered, clearing his throat uneasily, before continuing. “‘Someone To Come Home To,’ the picture was called. Lamplight in the window, and not being on the outside, looking in. It looked sort of – bright. Warming. And it made you feel - I don’t know.”

If Faramir’s memory served, the sight of lamplight through a cottage window had in the past made the Uruk-hai of Mordor feel like doing not much more than breaking the window and looting the premises, murdering any Gondorian occupants all in their beds, and then using the lamp oil to set light to the building on their way out. He said as much to Shagrat.

“You do have a point,” the Orc admitted, grudgingly. “I’m not saying you don’t. But that’s not what I meant.”

“So how about your old man,” he asked after another uncomfortable moment’s silence. “How’s old Denethor, ex-Steward of Gondor getting on with his second favourite son’s lovely bride. She is lovely, is she, Faramir? They did give you that much, I hope -”

Faramir leapt to his feet, propelled by rage and anguish, and grabbing Shagrat by the throat, thrust him bodily back against the wall. “You will not speak of my late Father!” Faramir hissed at him. “His name sits ill on the lips of a creature such as you.”

“I did hear a rumour he’d passed on,” Shagrat replied, in a strangled voice. “Can’t say I was sorry to see him go. Never knew him in person of course, but I saw clearly enough the effect he’d had on you. I’m glad you’ve settled with someone nice, Faramir. Someone who’ll be willing to put you first, for once.”

What was the use in pretending? Telling Shagrat could not conceivably make the slightest difference to Faramir’s situation, one way or the other. “She’s left me,” he said simply. “It’s common knowledge that she married me, only because she was unable to secure the affections of – of someone else.” In a way it was a relief for him to say it out loud, at last.

“I knew it,” Shagrat muttered in triumph, seemingly quite unperturbed by Faramir’s hand, which was still squeezing hold of him round his neck. “When you didn’t have a go at me for that dig about horses, that was when I knew for sure. You and me both know that you, Goldilocks my friend, are not exactly the marrying kind.”

“What – kind - of person, then, would you have me be, Shagrat?”

“Your own man, Goldilocks,” Shagrat replied, “but you already know what I think about that.”

His anger deflated, Faramir let go of Shagrat. The Uruk sagged back against the wall, panting for breath.

“So we can’t talk about the War, your old dad, or that runaway wife of yours,” Shagrat said. “That doesn’t leave us much, so how about we talk about your dagger instead. Please, Faramir, give me a loan of that. ‘Cause I want out. Give me an ending with a little bit of dignity, at least. I can’t very well carry on in this state, can I?”

Faramir shook his head.

“You wouldn’t – you couldn’t leave your old Shagrat, stuck in a fix like this, could you? Come on, Goldilocks. I always said you were nothing but a soft touch at heart.”

“Our actions, and all the choices we make have consequences,” Faramir told him, stiffly. “And over the years, you, Captain Shagrat, have made an unconscionable number of bad decisions. You are now going to have to learn to live with all of them.”

“Choices?” Shagrat muttered, “now, how do you work that one out, exactly? No, Goldilocks. That won’t do. You know you still owe me from last time.” Shagrat stared hopefully at Faramir for a while, but at last his face fell as he realised that he had no intention of helping him. On seeing his dismay, Faramir felt another odd, unwarranted twinge of guilt – which, hurrying out of the tavern’s back room, he quashed, immediately. Before too long, however, the Uruk seemed to have recovered his spirits somewhat.

“How about a loan of a bleedin’ penknife, Goldilocks, hey?” Faramir heard Shagrat shouting across the Tavern courtyard, as he made his way back to his rooms.


	3. Alone in the dark

“Oh, Goldilocks,” Shagrat breathed into Faramir’s ear. He groaned with pleasure, and eagerly, Faramir shifted under him, bucking up to push harder against Shagrat’s stomach. Hot, fervent kisses rained down on his shoulder, his neck, his cheek, and he twisted his face round so that Shagrat would be to reach his mouth properly. Shagrat hadn’t known a lot about kissing, before, but Faramir had shown him what to do, and now he was getting good at it. Shagrat was getting really very good at it indeed. He kissed Faramir repeatedly, reaching round to pull him close.

“Goldilocks – love –“ Shagrat moved his hips again in the way that made Faramir wriggle ecstatically under him. He could feel Shagrat’s body quivering against him as the Orc shuddered on the edge of his climax. Snarling out suddenly, he fastened his mouth round Faramir’s shoulder in a passionate love-bite, growling and panting helplessly, deep in the back of his throat. Shagrat’s hands, one of which was fixed at the back of Faramir’s neck, and the other at his groin, clutched and stroked him possessively. At once, Faramir felt his own orgasm beginning to build.

“Shagrat,” Faramir gasped, at his moment of crisis. His voice seemed to him to ring oddly in his ears, and feeling an uneasy sense of disorientation, he opened his eyes. He was lying alone in his rooms at the Tavern. It was quiet outside and it was dark.

Horrified, Faramir leapt up, clearing the bed he’d been sleeping in and jumping to his feet in one great bound. He leant back against the door of his bedroom, trembling with revulsion, cold sweat dripping off him.

That never happened, he reminded himself. Thank all that was holy, but it had never, quite, come to - that. Shagrat had let him go – no, Faramir reminded himself, he had daringly escaped from Shagrat – before things had ever gone that far. Knowing it was a small comfort to him however. Through the long years since he’d last seen the Orc, Faramir, dearly and secretly, had often wished that there had been some sort of resolution to the dubious, unorthodox – but mercifully brief - association they’d shared. Perhaps if they had done – that - he wouldn’t be finding himself in the situation he was in now, for despite Faramir’s best efforts, he’d never been able to erase the memory of Shagrat completely from his mind. Over the years, he’d taken a number of lovers – and he’d tried, with men and women both – but sooner, more usually than later, he’d find himself less than contented with these relationships. Faramir rarely acknowledged it to himself, but he knew that this had to have something to do with his experiences with the Orc. Shagrat had turned out to be a very difficult act to follow indeed, and worse than any of that, to his shame, on nights such as this one, even Faramir’s own body seemed set to betray him. The front of his nightshirt was damp with fresh-spilled semen and Faramir realised that his response to his dream of Shagrat had been real enough.

Wearily, Faramir realised that further sleep would be impossible, now. If he had been occupying his state rooms in the city, or his summer residence in Ithilien, Faramir would have retired to his personal library, where he had collected books enough to distract him, and there he would have immersed himself in his studies of the history and genealogy of his country, until his troubled state of mind had quieted itself. Had even the great library of Minas Tirith failed to engage his attention, there were always the ever-bustling streets of the lower City, where hawkers and food sellers and street-merchants plied their trade all through the night. 

In his younger days, Faramir had loved to lose himself in the night-time lower City. It had not taken him long to learn to blend easily into the wakeful throng, for the knack of deliberately avoiding notice was a skill that Faramir had been cultivating, consciously or unconsciously, for almost all of his life. In seeking to avoid adverse comment – on his actions, attitude, behaviour, deportment and so on - Faramir had taken to effacing himself, in time succeeding so well that ultimately, his presence had tended to be noted by almost no-one at all. The deaths of the few remaining members of his family in the Ring War had however changed that. Thrown into the spotlighted position of Prince and Steward Apparent, it had become quite impossible for Faramir to escape attention. He was now admired and celebrated, irrespective of his actions and unconditionally, wherever he went, in what he found to be an exact, complete reversal of his early life-experiences. That had certainly been the case during his improvised tour of the town and the surrounding countryside earlier in the day. Faramir, as a soldier and ranger had survived years of bombardment from countless Orc-hordes. He had led guerrilla attacks against Haradrim invaders, held City defences against air-borne assaults from winged Nazgul, and been a leader of men through a time of despair. He had even at one stage briefly been tempted by, and rejected, the lure of the One Ring. Despite all that, the relentlessly aggressive fawning upon his person to which Faramir had recently been subjected, by the Town councilmen, their wives and their daughters still had to count as one of the more daunting experiences he’d ever had to face, nonetheless.

The thought came to Faramir, quite unbidden, that of all the people he had been close to in his life, only his beloved older brother Boromir, and - incongruously - Shagrat, the Uruk Captain of Mordor, had ever looked at him without some level of prior expectation, making no demands of him other than that he be himself. The notion that his adored, dead brother and a filthy, misbegotten Orc could share any sort of common ground between them made him deeply uncomfortable however, and Faramir paced around his room restlessly, casting his mind here and there, trying to find something – anything - else to think about.

It was very late, but on pushing aside the drapes at his bedroom window, Faramir saw that the public bar of the Tavern downstairs was still open for business. He dressed himself quietly, and stealing out past the doors of his aides, who occupied the rooms on either side of his own, he made his way down to the bar-room.

In the dim light provided by soot-blackened chimney lamps that hung from the rafters of the public bar, Faramir recognised the gap-toothed, smiling face of Shagrat’s Barker. The Barker greeted him heartily, then asked for Faramir’s opinion of his Uruk captive.

“Most impressive,” Faramir said, briskly.

“He didn’t say ‘owt to you, did he?”

Faramir assured the Barker that the Uruk had not.

“What, nothing at all?” The Barker’s brows knitted together in an ominous frown.

“Well of course he – did tell me a number of blood-curdling tales. Said he’d like to grind my bones to make his bread and so on,” Faramir fabricated, a little desperately. “Swore at me lot. All in all I found it was a most worthwhile exhibit. Very authentic Orcish experience. I’d highly recommend it.”

Placated by this, the Barker nodded approvingly.

“How did you come by such a creature?” Faramir asked, by way of making conversation.

“Ah, therein lies a tale, waiting for the telling.” 

Faramir waited politely. The Barker looked wistfully at his empty ale-pot. Faramir quickly attracted the attention of the Barman and ordered a round of drinks. Drawing down a large pull of foamy beer, the Barker smacked his lips and belched to himself sedately. He leaned comfortably on the bar and began to speak.

 

Interlude: The Barker’s tale

“They was moving south through the mountains, and he had a falling out with his own gang, by all accounts” the Barker said. “He’d no weapons, or armour, or anything left by the time I caught him, them other Orcs must have had the lot. He was out for an easy meal, I reckon, but the snows came early again that year, and the livestock was moved further down the valleys ahead of time. Me, I’d set a spring-trap up near the tree line. There’s lots of bears, and I was after a cub for my next dancing bear act. If you get a she-bear, late in the autumn, she’ll still have this year’s little ‘uns with her before they all go down for their winter sleep. Cubs is easier to manage but I fetched up snaring that big Orc instead. Spring-trap got him by the leg and then a he-bear came and had a go at him – well, they had a go at each other far as I could see. Never heard of a bear being throttled with its own tongue before – and I still couldn’t tell you how he managed it. It was dreadful - a dreadful sight. Orc wrecked the trap breaking free, and left the bear lying dead behind him – but not before he’d eaten a fair chunk out, fur, skin and all. Must’ve been pretty desperate. Ruined the pelt while he was about it, but I couldn’t have that, not losing the trap and a bear both. I’ve got my overheads to think of. So, I tracked that Orc to where he was holed up – left trail as clear as anything he did, black blood was spoutin’ out of him everywheres. He did try a few tricks – doubling back, wading through water and such. Must’ve known I was on his trail, but at last he went to ground in a summer sheep crib, in the next valley over the other side of the ridge. Didn’t put up much of a struggle by the time I found him. All the long bones in his leg was broken from the trap and he was nigh-on frozen, and half starved to death. Since then, we found it’s better if he’s on short rations, and between you and me that’s how we keep him in line these days. Surly so and so gets – you know, stroppy, otherwise. He tried to cut and run back in the spring a couple of times. Nearly made it back as far as the mountains, once, so after I’d had him fetched back the second time we took the splints he’d made off him and I sorted his ankle out, so he won’t get far again. A lot of the fight went out of him after I fixed him like that, and he became much easier to manage. Best thing I could have done, when you think about it.” 

Faramir digested all of that, in silence.

“He says he was some big-shot in the Black Army but I don’t know if I believe it. Hasn’t much about him that I can see and to tell the truth, he seems a sorry, broke-down sort of thing to me, no matter how good he’s been for business. You know, if that’s the best they could muster up on their side, well, it’s no wonder things worked out as they did, is it?”

Faramir felt a strange spark of indignation on Shagrat’s behalf to hear him dismissed like this. But then, he reflected, the Barker had never seen the old Uruk Captain in his prime. Faramir’s Shagrat, a version of him as he had been, more than twenty years previously – the Shagrat who still lived on, in Faramir’s memory - would have had a few things to say about that, and Faramir smiled inwardly, thinking about it. Shagrat had proved himself to be, in the end, not much more than a paper tiger, at least where Faramir was concerned. But he had always dealt with public slights to his dubious - and frankly, worrying – notions of personal honour in no uncertain, permanent, and very violent, terms.

***********

Early next morning Shagrat watched, squinting in the watery sunlight, until the last of the horses from Faramir’s party had been saddled up from the stables adjoining the tavern. Up until the end, he’d thought there was a good chance he might see Goldilocks again. Shagrat didn’t hope, exactly, for anything, very much any more, but all the same some part of him, a part that actually, he’d thought was long gone and forgotten about, had been looking out for Faramir, wanting to talk to him, one last time. Shagrat snarled disgustedly under his breath, cursing himself for being a starry-eyed fool, as he realised he’d been waiting for the young man, all through the previous day and night. Now it was obvious they were gone for good and the Orc sagged down from the painful, tip-toed hike he’d been holding while he watched the tavern courtyard through the stockroom window, and eased himself stiffly on to the floor. Bill Chard, the ill-tempered doorman, had with the money he’d taken from Faramir embarked on a drinking session of truly epic proportions, a mammoth bender that had begun the afternoon before and lasted well into the night. He had not of course bothered to check on Shagrat in the meantime, with the result that the Orc, locked alone in his outhouse, had not been fed or watered for quite some time. His right leg was throbbing viciously again and he was feeling feverish, and deathly sick.

So in the end, Goldilocks had swanned off and left him to it – just like last time, Shagrat reflected bitterly. After Goldilocks had first gone away from him, all those years ago, Shagrat had been left to make his explanations to the lieutenants of the Dark Fortress of Barad-Dur. His chief inquisitor, one of the lesser Nazgul, had been vicariously thrilled by Shagrat’s memories of his time with the young Gondorian, and also vastly amused by the notion that a hardened Uruk Captain could have lost his head so completely over nothing more than a mildly appealing human. In the interests of not much more than simple titillation then, the Nazgul had allowed Shagrat to survive his punishments - but in running and replaying the Uruk’s recollections of Faramir over and again, the wraith had by accident or design stripped away every bit of sweetness from his memories, till every one of them was used up; completely worn out. Seeing Goldilocks again had brought all of it back, though, as clear as day, and now without the slightest effort Shagrat was able to recall exactly how things had been; he could summon up every detail of how the young Faramir had looked and smelled and tasted. He could remember precisely why he’d reacted to the young man as disastrously as he had done, and desperately, Shagrat tried to suppress the debilitating rush of fond affection for Faramir that threatened to overwhelm him. It was a truly preposterous idea, unnatural and depraved, to think that such feelings could possibly exist in an Orc. 

If only, Shagrat groaned to himself, if only it could just have been clean and simple, straightforward, lust.

********

The months of rain in the mountains had caused a land-slide, that had blocked the main road south and west, so that the members of the Royal Party were forced to cut short their visit to the outlying provinces of Gondor. Consequently Faramir found himself once again approaching the town where he had happened upon Shagrat, not much more than a full day after his party had first left it. They had reached a crossroads several miles out from the City Gates when in the distance, coming towards them, Faramir recognised a collection of brightly painted wagons and beribboned livestock, the bells on their harnesses jingling faintly in the damp morning air. Such a rag-tag assemblage could only belong to Shagrat’s Barker.

Faramir’s heart leapt as he rode on to meet them. He very much wanted, but at the same time didn’t want to see Shagrat again. He quickly scanned the makeshift procession that was trailing out along the road behind the Barker. With a growing feeling of dread, he realised that Shagrat didn’t seem to be a member of their party.

“Where’s your Orc, this morning,” asked Faramir. He put a heartiness into his voice that he didn’t particularly feel as he searched the sad little caravan of cages and animals up and down. There seemed to be nothing there that could be large enough or even the appropriate shape to contain Shagrat. A sensation of cold fear began to creep into Faramir’s breast.

The Barker snorted in disgust. “He’s back in that last town we stopped over in, or whatever’s left of him is.”

“You all right, Sir?” the Barker added, with some concern. “You turned white as a sheet there for a minute.”

Faramir waved his questions off. “What went on?” he asked, his tone forced. 

“A washout, from start to finish, is what,” the Barker said. “Trapper brought a fresh-caught wolf for me yesterday afternoon, and I thought I’d put it in with the Orc. Bit of a novelty act. Orc would’ve beaten him eventually, but it should have been a right spectacle, and no mistake. Spectacle! Hah! Folk coming to an Orc-baiting don’t pay good money to see an Orc speaking to a wolf in some funny language and then lyin’ down quietly with his neck exposed, like what my Orc did, last night. Bleedin’ washout is what it was. I had to get the dancing bear out quick.” 

“The wolf killed him, then.”

“As good as,” the Barker said. “As good as. There was still a bit of life left at first light this morning and when we were leaving he begged me to finish him off. Though I was in no mood to do him any favours, not after what had gone on, I can tell you.”

“But he’s not dead,” Faramir said.

“Oh, he will be by now,” the Barker replied, “don’t you worry about that. I sold him to one of them council chiefs, and he had all kinds of plans - trophy-taking of some sort, I shouldn’t wonder, but even with what I got for the dead weight, I’ve still lost a packet on this. I’ll be steering clear of Orcs in future. Too much of a damn nuisance – beggin’ your pardon, Sir.” He took his leave politely, and Faramir watched dully, as the caravan moved off on its way.

Faramir stood by the side of the road, holding the reins of his horse and staring straight ahead, feeling numb with shock. Shagrat was dead. The hood of Faramir’s cape fell back and soon the driving rain began to flatten his hair to his scalp, while rainwater trickled unpleasantly down the back of his neck. Faramir didn’t notice. He kept staring into space, somehow finding himself unable to focus on anything other than the horrible thought that Shagrat was - dead. After a short time, one of the royal aides rode up beside him and eventually his solicitous enquiries brought Faramir back to himself a little. Without a word, the Prince of Ithilien swung up into his saddle and spurred his horse away. Faramir covered the four or five miles between the crossroads and the town at a flat-out gallop. He barely slowed as he clattered into through the Town Gates, and his horse skidded on the rain-wet cobbles and almost fell as Faramir reined it to a stop in the square outside the tavern.

Faramir leapt down. There was a group of people sitting at one of the tables sheltered by the tavern’s wooden veranda. They were having a morning drink and watching the rain. Among them was one of the councilmen, the royal-sceptic and would-be router of Orcs from the previous day. 

“What have you done with the Orc?” Faramir barked at him.

“We left the carcass round the side,” the councilman said. “Our plan was to have him strung up at the crossroads, just outside of town. Should make a good warning for all the rest of those vermin to stay well away! We’d have done it before now, but the rain held us off.”

Faramir sprinted the short distance to the midden at the back of the tavern. Shagrat’s mortal remains were slumped untidily there, on one side of the rubbish-pile. He had been stripped to the waist, but even the few clothes he had left were now hanging half-on, half-off him. He was dreadfully emaciated; there was not much left of him other than skin and bone. Faramir fell onto his knees in the mud and pulled Shagrat partway up into his lap. The Orc’s neck was encircled by ragged, bleeding wounds, and the body felt cold, but was not yet stiff. Faramir wrenched his cape off over his head and carefully enshrouded Shagrat with it.

The councilman arrived shortly afterwards, now protected from the rain by a heavy waxed cloak and galoshes. “With all due respect to your royal person and so on my Lord,” he said, “I don’t see what you’re so upset about. It’s only a dead Orc.” 

Faramir snarled at the man, startled to hear himself spitting out the few words of Black Speech – dreadful profanities, all of them – that he’d acquired years previously, during his stay in Mordor.

The councilman fell back, open-jawed with shock.

“I don’t expect you to understand,” Faramir told him, clutching Shagrat close. “But this Orc is my Orc, I tell you. He’s mine.”


	4. In the Tower of Cirith Ungol

It always seemed ironic to Faramir, and also a wretched commentary on the state of his home life that looking back on it, his sojourn as a prisoner in the Tower of Cirith Ungol represented one of the more restful periods that he would ever remember experiencing during his youth and early adulthood. 

A more restful period – comparatively speaking, that is. The days were monotonous, and they were all exactly the same. The nights – well, Shagrat had quickly taken to keeping company with Faramir at night and at those times, Faramir was on a completely uneven footing, continually off-balance. At night, Faramir hadn’t much idea where he stood at all. 

Except that when Shagrat was with him, Faramir knew without a doubt that he had every bit of the Uruk’s attention. His gaze followed Faramir constantly, and sometimes Faramir would surprise Shagrat watching him, staring at him with open admiration and appreciation. It was deeply unsettling, but at the same time for Faramir, conditioned as he had been by years of harsh condemnation and unwarranted reproach, this had been a heady experience, indeed.

And to Faramir, sometimes the wily old Uruk even had a certain kind of raffish appeal about him – a sort of white-knuckled, headlong good-humouredness, although the idea that a servant of the Enemy could possess any kind of redeeming feature was not a concept that the young Gondorian’s training would easily allow him to accept.

Shortly after he began his first military posting as a Ranger in Ithilien, a scouting party of which Faramir was a member was attacked by a patrol of Orcs, evidently hailing from a squadron stationed just inside the Black Gate. In the confusion of the ambush Faramir, who had fallen behind while helping to defend the rearguard of his comrades’ retreat, became separated from the rest of the party. Finding himself alone, and unsure of his position in the wild, unknown terrain, the young Ranger had quickly been cut off from his companions and surrounded by the eight surviving Orcs and Uruks. Though he had fought them with maniacal energy, dispatching or mortally wounding a number of his foes, in very little time he had been subdued and taken captive. 

Faramir had not understood, at first, why they had not killed him outright. He had been blindfolded and bound by the Orcs, his hands tied behind him but his legs left free, and in this condition he had been moved onwards at a sprinting run, for what seemed to him like several long hours. Between Faramir’s increasing exhaustion and the cruel goads his Orcish captors applied, he’d had little opportunity to develop a proper sense of fear and apprehension about his situation. All this changed when the patrol reached its destination, however. After a tense waiting period, during which the Orcs and Uruks crowded round Faramir to hide him, pressing so closely that he was nearly suffocated by their proximity and the reek of their stinking bodies, he was rushed a short distance then down a long flight of steps, and was finally thrown roughly into an enclosed space. He lay for a time, resting against cold, damp stone, with the Orcs all around him quarrelling noisily. They spoke together using their own fell language, the harsh consonants of it grating cruelly in Faramir’s ears, even as they cast an odd taunt or insult at him in the Common Tongue. Even without understanding the specifics of what they were saying, it was clear to Faramir that they were bickering over who should have ‘first turn,’ and he knew that they were debating about when to begin torturing him to death. The young Gondorian lay quietly, gathering his strength and trying to contain his rising panic. 

The Orcs’ decision was soon made. Faramir was kicked over onto his back and the blindfold removed. His shirt was stripped open by a bulky, long-armed Orc, a red-faced creature with yellow, protruding fangs, which sported a row of metal staples in its forehead. The Orc bent low over him, and probed its talons delicately into the whip-marks that had recently been left on Faramir’s shoulders. Faramir immediately brought his knees up into the Orc’s belly, momentarily fighting it off, and was booted viciously in the side of the head for his trouble. In a daze, he was lifted and turned onto his stomach, his legs held down in a scissor-grip by another Orc, while the first one mounted him. It clambered up to lie flat against Faramir’s back, its dreadful weight crushing him as it pressed itself close, like a lover. It fitted its hand over Faramir’s nose and mouth, pulling his head backwards with terrible strength, cutting off his breath.

Faramir shuddered as the Orc ground its groin against his back, rubbing itself onto his still-bound hands. Its erection butted insistently against Faramir’s buttocks, pushing into the fabric of his breeches and to his horror he realised that the vile creature planned to use him to take its own pleasure. His resolve to bear himself as befitted a soldier of Gondor evaporated utterly – he had steeled himself, and had prepared to withstand pain and torment, but not such a fate as this. The Orc whispered foul endearments to Faramir, chuckling softly into his ear, its claws pricking at him. Faramir nearly choked, from fear and lack of air. Loud, clattering footsteps, followed by a draught of cold air as the door to the cellar was briefly opened and shut revived him somewhat. 

“Maggots,” rumbled a new, much deeper voice. It had none of the snickering, slavering tones used by the Orcs who had captured Faramir. Like them, it used the Black Speech, but its accent was clear and cold and the inflection quite different. “Let’s have a look at what you’ve got there,” it said. “Out of my way, Snaga –“ this was followed by a hefty thump as the new speaker batted one of the lesser Orcs off Faramir’s back, and then he was grabbed under his arms and hauled to his feet. He found himself face-to-face with a large Mordor Uruk, evidently a creature of some rank, from the way the smaller Orcs were scuttling around and making way for it.

“Well, well, well,” the Uruk said, gazing intently down at Faramir. Faramir, dazed and disoriented, was quite unable to break eye contact with him. “This is a fine looking prize, and no mistake. When were you boys planning on telling your Captain about it, hey?”

“We was just on our way,” one of the Snaga replied.

“Too late,” the Captain said, “seems to me you’ve had your chance and lost it. I’m taking charge of the prisoner myself.”

“Oi, Shagrat,” the red-faced Orc whined at him, “now, we brung him back off our own bat. It’s only one of them Dunna – Dunnedeea – one of them Rangers out of Ithilien. They’d never send nobody there what was worth anything, would they? So what’s the harm in us having a bit of sport, before we finish him? Share, won’t you? Fair’s fair.”

“Not a chance,” Shagrat said. “I’m having him for my own personal use. Captain’s prerogative.”

The other Orcs muttered mutinously under their breaths, but there were no further protests.

“Follow me, Goldilocks,” Shagrat said. Faramir looked at him foolishly. “Yes, I’m talking to you,” the Uruk told him, switching languages abruptly and using the Common Tongue. “Not simple, are you? No? Well come on, then.” 

The Captain moved off quickly, striding ahead in great long-legged lopes so fast, that as eager as he was to escape, Faramir was hard-pushed to keep up. He followed the Uruk unthinkingly, running not so much after him as simply to get away; away from the cellar and the other Orcs. They climbed the stairway that brought them back up to ground level and made their way towards a large, circular barrack-room; it was apparent that the building they were in was one of the dark Watchtowers that lined the inner walls of the Mordor Gate. Faramir baulked where he stood on the threshold; the room beyond was filled with Uruk-hai and Orcish troops. Some were eating, seated around rough wooden tables, while others lounged here and there in groups or rested on the floor, leaning against the walls. Without speaking, the Captain pushed his way through the throng, elbowing his comrades roughly aside. The crowd parted before him and closed in his wake.

“Here, Shagrat, what have you been picking up today?” one of the Orcs cried out, registering Faramir’s presence for the first time.

“’Av’ you brung us all a present? Or did you fetch ‘im for me, special?” another Orc shouted.

“Go on! I saw him first!” the first Orc retorted. “Such a sweet, pretty thing. I’d love a bit of that. We all would - wouldn’t we, boys!” The attention of the entire group was now focussed on Faramir, and they all began jeering and catcalling, howling out obscenities and meaningless, bestial yowls. Uncertain of their meaning, Faramir hesitated, stopping short in his tracks. Three short, bow-legged Orcs stepped up behind him immediately, blocking his exit. Encouraged by all this, the first Orc began to push his way towards Faramir, while the trio at Faramir’s back forced him forwards, further into the chamber.

From near the back of the room, Shagrat launched himself at the Orc who was approaching Faramir, tackling and grappling him to the ground so quickly that Faramir, in his confusion, barely had time to register what was happening. Shagrat’s claws, feet and teeth ripped into the hapless creature mercilessly, while muffled, wet, tearing noises snarled out of the Captain’s mouth. The Orc gave a horrible, cut-short yowl as Shagrat’s teeth crunched, with awful finality, through the back of his neck. Shagrat threw the body down, disgustedly and jumped to his feet to stand in a hunch-backed crouch. Scowling at them, snarling and slobbering like an animal, he drew his sword and slowly turned this way and that, staring down the rest of the troops. All of them pointedly avoided his gaze. 

Shagrat twitched. He straightened up, wiping his mouth.

“This Tark is mine,” he said, with quiet menace. “Everybody. Understood?” A clamour of hasty assents answered him. The Uruk and Orc troops fell back, scrambling to get out of the way.

Shagrat began to climb a flight of black stone steps at the opposite side of the barrack room.

“I won’t tell you again,” Shagrat said to Faramir over his shoulder, once again speaking so that the young man would understand. “Goldilocks, you’d do well to follow me.”

Faramir lurched forwards, finding himself pushed on towards Shagrat. The staircase the Uruk was ascending followed the inner wall of the tower, spiralling upwards, and soon Shagrat was one or more turns above and ahead of Faramir and had passed out of sight. The stone flags below his feet as he climbed were damp and slick with grease and with his hands still tied behind him, Faramir had difficulty in keeping his balance. He stumbled repeatedly onto his knees, at last falling full-length, cracking his chin down hard on the steps ahead. A moment later, the Uruk was beside him and once again had hauled Faramir roughly up to his feet. Shagrat shoved him face-forwards into the wall, holding him firmly in place there by the neck and Faramir heard the metallic scrape as he unsheathed his sword. Weak at the knees, he squeezed his eyes shut, expecting both death and dishonour, that the Captain would soon begin using him however he saw fit.

The Uruk sliced through the ropes that bound Faramir’s wrists, then let go of him, immediately.

Faramir turned round. “Thank you,” he said, automatically.

Shagrat recoiled visibly from him, his unlovely face, still a mask of drying Orc blood, contorting in a wordless snarl. He turned his back on Faramir and bounded off up the stairs. Slowly, Faramir followed after him, at a distance. What else was there to do?


	5. Odd couple

“I’m a Captain in the mightiest army that’s been mustered anywhere, for more than a thousand years!” Shagrat yelled, “and I’ll thank you not to forget it! I’m a commanding officer and if I don’t start getting a bit of respect from you, here in my own quarters, you’ll be down the stairs with those Snaga-Orcs before you know it!”

“But I don’t even have yellow hair,” Faramir protested again, under his breath. Shagrat had at one point asked for his name and Faramir had duly given him a false one, but as the Uruk seemed unwilling to address him as anything other than ‘Goldilocks,’ he couldn’t see why the Orc had asked in the first place. And they were most definitely not, Faramir reminded himself, having a domestic argument. It wasn’t that they were living together, in any real sense. Circumstances – circumstances engineered, admittedly, by Shagrat - had thrown them very much together, but that was all.

The Uruk eyed him balefully. “Look around you, Goldilocks,” he said. “You’re in the Land of Shadow now. You are aware of that, am I right? I haven’t seen anything as bright, or as clean as you in all the time I’ve been here,” the Captain added, “and I’ve been here an age.” 

Whether they were co-habiting or not, the young Gondorian and the Uruk had fallen easily enough into regular, day-to-day routine – albeit after a somewhat shaky start.

The first few hours of Faramir’s confinement in Shagrat’s apartments – for the Uruk had commandeered a set of rooms for himself, an interconnected suite that occupied the entire uppermost level of the Tower – had passed without event. The Captain had pointedly ignored him, almost as if he was in some way embarrassed by Faramir’s presence, and the young man had whiled the time away by passing through agonies of apprehension, uncertainty and dread. 

“Captain Shagrat,” Faramir had said, his words ringing out suddenly, breaking the silence. Shagrat, who had been pacing restlessly, crossing and re-crossing the tiny floor-space in his rooms, stopped short, evidently much surprised to hear Faramir addressing him in this manner. “Captain Shagrat,” Faramir repeated, having decided that anything was better than not knowing his own fate, “may I ask you for your intentions towards me?”

“Well stone me,” the Orc replied at length, “if you don’t have the prettiest set of manners I ever heard of. You keep on with your ‘Captain’ me this and ‘Captain’ me that, I’m sure we shall get along just fine.”

Shagrat had gone on to explain his intentions, saying it would be useful for an officer in his position to have a resident assistant - a batman, if Faramir liked, to help him with certain personal and domestic duties about his quarters. This assistant would, as Shagrat said, act as a buffer between the Captain and the rank-and-file – Orcs who Shagrat loathed and despised (“those Snaga! Maggots!”), and with whom it was clear that he was keen to avoid all unnecessary contact. Faramir could, amongst other things – and it was becoming obvious that Shagrat was making these duties up as he went along – fetch meals and so on for Shagrat from the communal mess. Shagrat’s imagination failed him completely at this point and his voice tailed off.

“And I could – help keep your quarters in order, perhaps,” Faramir suggested. He cast a doubtful eye about Shagrat’s rooms, which were basic in the extreme, sparsely furnished to the point of being almost empty.

“Yes!” Shagrat guffawed, a little too heartily. “We shall get along famously.”

Shagrat’s next actions however, gave the lie to this statement entirely. Night was falling, and as it grew darker and darker in the unlighted apartment, the Orc’s demeanour began to change. Slowly, he began to relax and the restlessness and anxiety that had been in his manner disappeared, only to be replaced by a fixed and hungry watchfulness that seemed to signal a quite different set of emotions – a kind of motivation that Faramir really couldn’t bring himself to accept. He felt the intensity of Shagrat’s gaze on him, even through the dark, and he stirred uncomfortably, pulling his ruined shirt closed across his chest. In one or two quick strides, Shagrat was up and standing over him, and had him pinned in place. 

“What are you doing? I’m a prisoner of war!” Faramir cried.

“Hold still a minute,” Shagrat muttered, “just want to have a look at what I’ve got myself here.”

Faramir wriggled in Shagrat’s grasp, in a half-hearted attempt to break free. He could have wrenched himself away easily enough, but couldn’t tell how Shagrat might have reacted to that. Faramir was unarmed; severely disadvantaged by the pitch darkness around them, and moreover the Orc, who could obviously still see him quite clearly, had already proved himself to be even more hot-tempered and impulsively violent than the rest of his kind. And as Faramir was all too aware, there was not really any place that he could run to, in any case. “You’re holding me hostage!” he protested, weakly.

“No, Goldilocks,” Shagrat growled back at him, “I’m not. You’re free to go any time you like. You might not get far, but you’re welcome to take your chances downstairs with those Snaga maggots, whenever you care to try it.” Still holding Faramir down with one hand, he moved his face close in against the young man’s chest and armpits, sniffing deeply, and apparently drinking in the scent of his sweat and his skin. From time to time Shagrat’s tongue flickered out to take a taste, and though the concept of being held in place in the dark and licked by an Orc was dreadful in the extreme to Faramir, to his horror and confusion the sensation itself was not…wholly unpleasant.

“I would never make it past the Black Gate,” he gasped.

“That Black Gate, Goldilocks, was built by your lot with the express purpose of keeping the likes of me safely contained,” Shagrat said. “Now you’ve wound up on the wrong side of it, you’re stuck fast, here with a pack of filthy Orcs. I wouldn’t give two straws, not for your chances of making it out again alive. So you’d better keep on the right side of me, if you know what’s good for you.”

Shagrat leaned his shoulder against Faramir, using his weight to pin him against the wall. He moved his free hand down to Faramir’s groin and began rubbing him, fingering him through his clothes. To his disgust, Faramir felt himself beginning to respond to the pressure and friction of the Orc’s touch, a change that was immediately noted by Shagrat, who began manipulating him with even greater enthusiasm. Faramir tried with all his might to stop his body from reacting, and failing utterly, felt wretched, shameful tears starting to prick at the backs of his eyes.

“Don’t,” he muttered in deep distress, speaking to himself as much as to Shagrat, “don’t.”

To Faramir’s extreme surprise the Orc let go of him at once, pushing him aside and snorting in disgust. With a snarl he withdrew, and Faramir heard his footsteps clattering away from him in the dark. Exhausted from tension, fear, and lack of food, Faramir sank to the floor, drawing his knees up to his chest, and he stayed huddled there, for the rest of the night. The very worst thing of all, he’d been appalled to find out, was that there had been a part of him that - hadn’t wanted Shagrat to stop.

After this inauspicious set of first impressions however, the Uruk, conspicuously, had not laid a hand on Faramir. He would be absent for much of the day, leaving Faramir alone in his rooms, where there was very little to occupy the young man’s time. There was nothing for him to do but to stare out at the view, and even then there was not much to see apart from the sick, yellow cloudbanks that hung in a permanent, low-lying haze all about the borders of the Land of Shadow. The view of the blighted sky was at least a little better than the hideous sight of the ground around the Tower, however. In that place noisy Orc battalions were continually marched and drilled up and down over the ash-black clinker soil that made up the Mordor plain. Faramir’s brief trips downstairs to the Orcish barracks were also, for the most part, uneventful and marked as Shagrat’s personal property as he had been, he was on the whole, left severely alone. All in all then, in his solitude, Faramir quickly came to anticipate – look forward, even, to Shagrat’s return in the evenings, for the Orc was company of a sort if nothing else, and certainly, he was always keen to want to talk. He would keep Faramir awake long into the night with endless questions about his life and experiences in the White City. At first, Faramir suspected that the Orc was trying to extract information of tactical value from him, but it soon became clear that Shagrat’s interests in Gondor began and ended with, and were entirely restricted, to the subject of Faramir himself. The result of all this was that after the first day or so, Faramir found himself adopting a semi-nocturnal pattern of activity. The Uruk did not possess a bed and seemed to require very little sleep. When he dozed - and he never seemed to take more than a light catnap, he did so from a sitting position, on the floor, his back against a wall and with one hand permanently resting on the sword-hilt at his belt. 

And he was in the habit of bringing Faramir – gifts. A supply of candles and lamp oil at first. Black bread, and, when he noted Faramir’s reluctance to consume the shreds of nameless dried flesh that were the Orcs’ usual provender, a haunch of smoked venison, with the hoof still attached to it. He brought wine from Ithilien; a ranger’s blanket roll - the rusty blood-stains on it faded and old - for Faramir to sleep on. It was something like being wooed, albeit in a macabre and grisly manner, and although most of Shagrat’s attempts at good humour at best misfired and at worst were downright ghastly, he did at times behave towards Faramir in a way that, if it had come from almost anybody else, would mean he was pathetically eager to please.

Nor did Shagrat’s obvious partiality for his new companion go unnoticed in the Orcish barracks. 

Early one evening, Faramir made his way downstairs to the Orcs’ communal mess-room. Shagrat, like the rest of his kind did not use water to wash, but even Uruk-hai Captains needed to drink from time to time and a large stoneware jar full of water was kept in his quarters for this purpose. The murky contents of this vessel were stagnant at best and though Shagrat appeared to able to drink from it without suffering any ill effects, Faramir had taken it upon himself to refresh their drinking supply every day or so from the storage tank that served the rest of the Orcish troops.

There were two Snaga-Orcs, shortish, snaggle-toothed creatures, each standing at about a man’s shoulder-height, loitering near the water cistern when Faramir arrived. The first Orc, the smaller of the pair, nodded insolently at him, in sneering acknowledgement of his favoured status as it stepped aside slightly to let the young man past. The second Orc however, stayed put, and extended its arm across the narrow corridor to block Faramir’s path. With surprising strength for a creature of such a size, it twisted its claws into Faramir’s shirtfront and dragged him down, till his face was level with its own.

“Take your hands off me,” Faramir told it evenly, without resisting. He had learnt that Orcs, though they rarely chose to speak it, did in general understand the Common Tongue. The Orc, looking mightily amused, chuckled noisily and pulled him even closer.

With great agitation, the smaller Orc prised its companion’s clutching hands away.

“Leave it, mate,” it whined at its companion, “leave it. S’not worth it.” It sidled in between Faramir and the other Orc, and began backing away from him, pushing its companion along behind. “No harm done, eh?” it gulped, nervously. “We’ll just be off on our way, all right? Like I said, no harm done.” At the smaller Orc’s insistence, the pair moved off a safe distance away from Faramir. There they stood still, muttering to one another, casting surreptitious, backward glances at him.

It always took some time for Faramir’s vessel to be filled by the slow trickle of water from the cistern and he leaned nonchalantly against it, to wait. He wasn’t sure if scruples about eavesdropping on other people’s conversations could possibly apply to a couple of Orcs, but couldn’t help that these two had chosen to hold a conversation well within earshot of him, so he listened, intently. Although Faramir had picked up more than a smattering of Black Speech during his time in the Tower, he still understood more of the language than he could himself speak and found that he could make out more than a little of what the two Orcs were saying. Faramir’s saviour was explaining the situation to his companion. They were obviously gossiping about Shagrat. 

 

Interlude 2: Orc talk

“Nar. Def’nitely hands off,” the first Orc told his companion. “Where’ve you been? That was the Uruk Captain’s new bit of stuff. He’ll have your eyes out if he catches you just looking funny at ‘im.”

“Nother one?” the second Snaga said. “How many’s that make, now? What’s old Vashnek want another one for, eh? He’s only got one friggin’ cock.”

“Not,” the first Snaga replied, “Captain Vashnek.” He paused dramatically, for emphasis. “Captain of our Watchtower. Captain Shagrat.”

“Shagrat!” his companion exclaimed. 

“Yes, Shagrat,” confirmed the first Snaga proudly, “you heard it from me first.” 

The second Orc shook his head in disbelief. “Nah. You’re ‘aving me on. Every sod knows that Shagrat, that big bugger, he doesn’t like to fuck. What is it now, must be two hundred years I bin here, an’ in all that time, nothin’ but him wanking on his lonesome up in that frigging Tower. He does have the odd wank, d’you reckon? Brrrr! It don’t bloody well bear thinking about does it? What’s all that about, d’you suppose?”

“Ah, well, our dear Captain, he hasn’t always been the big, vicious bruiser what we’ve come to know and understand and spend all our time trying to keep on the right side of. Time was, and this is going back a long, long while, mind, he was more of your classic underdog. Bottom of the pile, in more ways than one, if you know what I’m saying. Me, I was a squaddie in one of the garrisons stationed out at Lugburz about the time he was first conscripted. Captain always was tall for his age, but he came into his weight a lot later than usual, so I guess ‘cos of that he’d have landed up with more than his share of rough-housing, down in the barracks at first. And you wouldn’t think it to look at him now, but he was quite a pretty boy in those days. All in the breeding. Beautiful head of hair on him and then some, and other things too, what he couldn’t do nothing about. Those sort of sports crop up every few generations or so, like you know. So of course that’s never helped him neither, ‘cause you know how Uruks genr’ly like to mess up anything what’s a bit too nice and fancy looking for its own good. Well, our young Shagrat came in for a lot of that, and was soon messed up proper. Stuff what went on would make yer hair curl. Went on for ages, it did, till he’d filled himself out a bit.” 

“And that’s how he came to be such a miserable old devil?”

“Yes. That Shagrat. He’s a grudge-bearing bastard too. Every one of ‘em, what had ever made things difficult for him early on, once he’d got some muscle behind him, and started rising through the ranks, he made a special point of doing ‘em down. Every last one. Proper vendetta – he’d see to it personally. It took him longer than you’d believe, but he never forgot - even though there was some thought he must have, what never lived to see their mistake. In the end he got the last of the old crowd of Uruks on the end of his blade and after that he shut himself away from everyone, up top in the Tower. Hardly talks –“ 

“Except for when he’s screamin’ orders at folk,” the second Orc broke in.

“That’s right,” the first Snaga continued, “never talks, ‘cept for when he’s screamin’ and bullying, only comes downstairs when he has to. And so help you if you even brush up against him, accidental like, when you’re going past. He’ll kill you, and won’t never think twice about it.”

“No! Just for touching him by mistake? I reckon he’s crazy.”

“Yeah. I do. Even more than most. And that’s saying something.”

“So what’s he want with this new Tark-boy, then?”

“Well, that is the question. That is the question. But who can say, who can say?” the first Orc replied, shaking his head doubtfully. “But he is besotted, Shagrat is. That Tark’s thrown a chain around his heart and then some. Always rushing off early, making any excuse to bunk off back to his rooms. Betterer mood than I’ve seen him in ever, but he’s letting things slide. Our old Captain, some say he’s losing his touch.”

“Shagrat, nar,” his companion scoffed. “You’ll never tell me he’s got a bleedin’ heart in the first place.” 

The two Orcs stood in silence for a moment.

“Now, how’d he come by this new favourite?”

“Patrol brought him. Wanted to have a go at him in peace and quiet but got well rumbled on the way in. You know what Shagrat’s like for picking up anything what’s a bit bright, or eye-catchin’. He’s like one of them birds, what c’her call ‘em, what hangs around battlefields, getting stuff off the bodies. You know what I mean, to see one’s terrible bad luck.”

“Vultures,” the second Snaga said, nodding wisely. 

“Not vultures you idiot,” the first Snaga replied, “Those little black-and-white jobs. What are them things called, maggot-pies. But -” he paused, considering - “you’re right, though, the dear Captain does look like a bit like a vulture.” He crossed his arms and drew himself up into a very passable imitation of Shagrat’s high-shouldered, stoop-backed, hunching stance - a recognisable pose that certainly was shared by Shagrat and vultures, both.

The two Orcs, cackling raucously, moved out of Faramir’s line of sight.


	6. First date

Faramir made his way slowly back upstairs. The obvious, unsavoury aspects of their association aside, it was in a way oddly flattering, he supposed, to think that the misanthropic Uruk Captain had singled him out for such special notice. On arriving at Shagrat’s quarters, Faramir found that Shagrat had once again ‘bunked off early’ as the Orcs downstairs had put it, and had already returned to his rooms.

Faramir watched him sidelong. The Captain clearly planned to share an evening meal with his reluctant Gondorian guest and was busily laying out a few choice items out for them – given Shagrat’s general lack of household furnishings - in their wrappings directly on the floor. He had brought more wine – a bottle each for himself and Faramir, and he was humming a twilight, discordant melody absently under his breath, looking incongruously happy about his task - though the bizarre domesticity of the scene was at one point fractured, as Shagrat, who had been having difficulty in uncorking the wine, with a sudden, unprovoked movement, smashed the necks of the dusty old bottles open against the wall. Sheepishly, he picked the pieces of broken glass away then handed one of the bottles to Faramir, who thanked him and took a careful, polite drink. Shagrat beamed at him, much gratified to see that another one of his offerings had been accepted. Of course, he didn’t look much better when he smiled. He was still as fearsome-looking as ever, and if anything, looked even worse.

Faramir, however, was beginning to get used to that. Shagrat had been a good-looking young Uruk at one point, the Snaga downstairs said, although what that meant by Orcish standards could be anyone’s guess. He certainly did have a kind of ruined, raddled elegance about him, and it would not have taken a very great twist of imagination to see that Shagrat’s appearance could at one time have tended more towards being note-worthy and striking, rather than – as it was now – hideously grotesque. Faramir mulled this over while they ate. The meal was taken largely in silence, Shagrat, with his usual complete lack of finesse, having more or less killed all casual conversation outright.

“Do you like girls or boys best?” he’d asked, interestedly. “For shagging, and that, I mean.”

“What kind of question is that?” Faramir muttered, blushing red to his ears.

“I’m making small talk,” Shagrat said, airily. “I heard about that, once. After we’ve hammered you lot, there might be – you know. Diplomatic opportunities and such. Orc like me, he might even have to come to make polite conversation with any surviving members of your side. Small talk. You know.”

“This isn’t making small talk,” Faramir insisted.

“It is if you’re an Uruk out of Mordor,” Shagrat said, stubbornly. “What do they talk about in Gondor?”

“I haven’t had many opportunities to practice the social graces,” admitted Faramir. 

“And you living in the White City? How’s that, then?”

“I’m rarely called into polite society,” Faramir said, feeling himself beginning to blush with shame. It was a very familiar feeling, and he spoke quickly, talking about anything at all to cover it. “But I understand the weather is always considered to be a safe enough topic, by most people.”

“In Mordor,” Shagrat growled, “the sun doesn’t shine, the rain burns if it falls on your naked skin and the wind, when it does blow through the eternal pall of clouds and smoke that surrounds us, reeks of nothing so much as corruption and decay.” He broke off, apparently embarrassed by his own eloquence. 

After that, neither Shagrat nor Faramir had said anything more for some time. Faramir, to cover his discomfort, drank deeply from his bottle, so perhaps it was the effect of the strong wine, or perhaps it was the brief moment of pity he’d felt for Shagrat, when he’d heard the Snaga talking about how he’d lived for so many years in isolation. Whatever the reason, at length Faramir heard himself asking: “Why do you choose to avoid all others of your kind, Captain Shagrat?”

Shagrat paused for a long while before making any kind of reply, and when he did, he largely failed to answer the question.

“You know what everyone says about Orcs, don’t you?” he said.

A great variety of statements had been made by very many different people about Orcs, and Faramir didn’t know quite how to respond to that. Eventually, Shagrat answered for him.

“They say that we Orcs are ruled entirely by our base instincts. They say we can’t experience even the smallest shred of enjoyment or pleasure, save for in witnessing the torments we inflict upon our victims.” 

“From what I’ve heard, and seen for myself that…does seems to be true,” Faramir replied, uncertainly.

Shagrat gave Faramir a gloomy smile. “Oh, I’d say it was more of a half-truth. People always exaggerate. There are one or two things we like doing, other than ripping, rending and killing. The urge to do violence never does go away though, I will grant you that.” He gave Faramir a long, assessing look, as if he was considering his options, and coming to some kind of decision. “But I must admit I am choosing not to do anything about it, in your case. All right then, Goldilocks,” he rumbled softly. “What say you we try and take my mind off it for a minute. Let’s have a go at doing something else.”

Shagrat knelt down in front of Faramir where he was sitting, and rested a heavy paw on Faramir’s knee. Shagrat’s black-rimmed, re-curved talons flexed and kneaded insistently, pricking through the fabric of Faramir’s breeches, alternating a soothing with a threatening pressure. The Uruk smoothed his way up the young man’s thigh, and traced one claw, teasingly, in a delicate stroke from the base to the tip of Faramir’s growing erection. The slight movement was for some reason wildly arousing to Faramir. He felt as if all the blood in his body had immediately drained itself into his groin, and the throb of his cock as his blood pooled into it made him light-headed with lust. 

“What d’you say?” Shagrat repeated, gazing intently up at Faramir, through his ragged fringe of stringy hair. Faramir had to remind himself that an Uruk-hai of Mordor represented a staggeringly ill-chosen object of erotic appeal, to say the very least. But then he quickly decided that at this stage, he really didn’t care two hoots about that, or Shagrat’s appearance, one way or the other.

Hating himself, and at the same time terrified that Shagrat’s attentions might stop at any moment, Faramir fumbled desperately at the lacings which held the top of his breeches closed. As he exposed himself for Shagrat, he gasped at the sensation of cold air washing over him. This was closely followed a blast of warmth from Shagrat’s hot, damp, breath as the Uruk leaned in intimately, moving further up between his legs.

‘That’s what I like to see, Goldilocks, love,” Shagrat purred. He closed his eyes and rubbed his face sensuously, deliciously, up against Faramir’s hard, stiffened member. Faramir was deeply shaken by this, torn between feelings of shock and horror versus absolute delight at the Orc’s actions. He had never even dreamed of being touched as wantonly, with such unashamed appreciation, as this.

When Shagrat’s mouth enveloped him, and the Orc began sucking with an easy, experienced movement up and down over his engorged member, Faramir for a moment, truly believed that he would faint from pleasure. He had heard of practices like this of course, but he had never really imagined that he would ever be on the receiving end of such a treatment. Faramir knew – had known for all his life - what was expected of him; as son of the Steward, he would eventually be betrothed to a Gondorian lady of moderate rank. A bovine assortment of future brides – merchant’s daughters, for the most part – had at one point been invited to the Citadel in Minas Tirith and discreetly paraded before Faramir, or more accurately, before Faramir’s Father, for approval. The prospective brides had been unanimously unenthusiastic over the prospect of liasing with the Steward’s out-of-favour second son, and made little attempt to hide it. Denethor had not chosen from the sturdily-hipped selection of good breeding stock laid out before him that day, leading Faramir to suspect that his Father was deriving a great deal of malicious pleasure from watching his son’s discomfiture during the arranged meetings. Until Faramir’s official engagement was announced however, he was under strictest instructions to keep himself, as his Father said, ‘pure.’

Even though, at a few months shy of his nineteenth birthday, Faramir was not, technically, a virgin, on account of his Father’s orders, Faramir’s relations with the fairer sex had been severely limited, all the same. There had been one or two embarrassing, moonlit fumbles - encounters instigated mainly for form’s sake during double dates set up by Faramir’s brother. These had involved Faramir mostly having his hands slapped away by blushing damsels; young women who evidently guarded their maidenly status much more jealously than Faramir did. And one tawdry – and excruciatingly brief - episode with a professional courtesan, bought and paid for, again, by Boromir, who had been quite at his wit’s end about his younger brother’s lack of progress. All in all then, Faramir had never really had a lover, but even without any reference points for comparison, he had the strangest sensation that now in some way he was being made love to, with honest, ardent fervour, by - of all people, the Uruk Captain, Shagrat. 

Shagrat brought one of his heavily clawed hands up to massage Faramir’s sac as he continued mouthing him and began to play his clever tongue along the base of Faramir’s member, urging him to thrust fully into his throat. The sensation of tightness and heat around him were too much for Faramir and after one or two desperate, final thrusts, he came frantically, arching his back and shivering with aftershocks. Though he knew he should have been repulsed and nauseated, Faramir couldn’t help feeling – mainly exhilarated – by what had happened. It must have shown on his face, for Shagrat grinned up at him wickedly, looking very pleased with himself and licking his lips.

It was a one-off, Faramir told himself, and he continued to tell himself so each evening after that, following the various intimate and unwholesome acts that Shagrat would enthusiastically perform for him. The Uruk certainly didn’t seem to expect much from Faramir in return, during their nightly trysts. It was difficult for Faramir to be sure, given the number and weight of the heavy, crusted leather layers that customarily lay between himself and Shagrat, but he was fairly confident that throughout their encounters, the Orc was easily as aroused as he was, and very likely even more so. Immediately after the young man had reached his orgasm, Shagrat would get to his feet and stalk through to one of the adjoining rooms where he would, Faramir surmised, take matters - in hand - for himself (so to speak). Nude or semi-naked as Faramir often found himself however, Shagrat never removed a single stitch of his own clothing – and to make matters worse, the Uruk was in the habit of wearing the entire contents of his own wardrobe, at all times, simultaneously. 

‘That Snaga rabble,’ as Shagrat had at one point explained, ‘would have the whole blinkin’ lot off me the minute my back was turned, else.’

So, between Faramir and the most cherished and private regions of Captain Shagrat would usually be the following items of Uruk-ish attire: one long, thigh-length, armoured surcoat, at least two kilted battle tunics plus a low-slung sword-belt and a rusty, chain-mail girdle. Topping all of this off was a studded, leaf-shaped, black metal cod-piece, a truly fearsome piece, which had discouraged any attempts from Faramir at initiating more intimate contact with the Orc, although even he would have had to admit that at times, he was becoming more and more tempted.


	7. Rumbled

Late one afternoon, perhaps a little over two weeks into his stay in Mordor, Faramir returned from a supply-gathering trip downstairs in the Uruks’ barrack-room. He found Shagrat already back and waiting for him, as had become his recent habit. The Orc was sitting on one of the low window ledges, silhouetted against the darkening sky while he watched the door, and as Faramir entered he jumped energetically to his feet, with weapons drawn in both hands. Shagrat seemed to sag down, relaxing slightly on seeing Faramir, but kept him fixed in a cold, predatory gaze which was quite, unnervingly unlike anything the young man had come to expect from him in the Uruk’s more usual persona of an amiable, if ham-fisted, love-struck admirer. 

“I heard a funny rumour,” Shagrat said, still watching Faramir closely. “They say that the Steward of Gondor’s second son went missing, not long ago, somewhere near the Black Gate. They’re still scouring the countryside, searching for him even as I speak. Now that’s funny, because not many people know the Steward of Gondor even has a second son. Everyone’s heard about Boromir, darling of the people, apple of his daddy’s eye and so on. Can’t go for long in this neck of the woods not hearing something about brave Captain Boromir. Now the other one, I forget his name but you’ll know it, Goldilocks won’t you –“ 

“Faramir,” Faramir said.

“Yes, this other one, Faramir, now he’d be quite a bargaining chip, a real feather in the cap for anyone who could lay their hands on him. So you’d think he’d have turned up before now, wouldn’t you? But no sign of him anywhere. That means either he’s dead, on their side of the Wall, which I doubt, since they’ve been looking everywhere, and if not that then he must already be here in Mordor. Dead, right enough, maybe, but otherwise he might be playing some poor mug for a fool, mightn’t he, hiding in full view. What do you think?”

The game was up and Faramir knew it. “My Father doesn’t know yet, does he?” Faramir blurted out anxiously. Before the words were out of his mouth he already had the answer to his question. Of course Denethor would know that Faramir had been captured by the Enemy, and that he had failed to conduct himself with valour, once again. The anxiety he felt on understanding this overshadowed completely any apprehension he felt, on realising that his true identity had been revealed.

Shagrat looked quite taken aback. “Well, Goldilocks,” he said, “that is interesting.”

“You knew it already,” Faramir countered, as Shagrat shrugged his assent. “That doesn’t tell you anything new.” 

“No, but it does tell me that you stand more in fear of your own father than you do of me,” Shagrat told him, “and given who, and what I am, to you, I think that’s surprising. But perhaps not so surprising after all. Who was it decided you should be sent for an Ithilien Ranger, Faramir? Ask for the job yourself, did you?”

Faramir didn’t reply.

“It’s about the most dangerous posting that exists in your military, isn’t it? Order couldn’t have come from your dear old Dad, by any chance, could it? Do you ever think he might be trying to tell you something?”

Faramir nodded curtly, his eyes dark and troubled. That thought had occurred to him, of course it had, though he’d tried to make a conscious effort not to admit it to himself.

“Ithilien. Right on the border between your country and Mordor. If I was some big-shot Tark, I wouldn’t want anyone I wanted to keep a hold of within a hundred miles of that place,” Shagrat said flatly. “You know, if you were mine, or anything to do with me, I’d want to take much better care of you than that.”

This handicapping reminder of Denethor’s public and obvious lack of regard for him once again eclipsed the more immediate difficulties that Faramir was facing, and he felt the beginnings of a hot flush of shame colouring his cheeks and rising up the back of his neck. He looked down at his hands. “What do you plan to do with me?” he said quietly.

Shagrat ignored the question. “What sort of name’s ‘Faramir,’ anyway?”

“My Mother was of Elvish descent,” Faramir said. Shagrat growled at him, stiffening aggressively on hearing this and Faramir continued nervously. “It means, it means ‘sufficient jewel.’”

Shagrat grunted non-committaly. “Sounds like someone didn’t think too much of you, did they?” he said.

“No,” Faramir replied meekly, “they didn’t. But it fits me well enough. My being the second son, you see. What. What does ‘Shagrat,’ ah –“ 

“What do you bloody well think it means?” roared Shagrat. “Are you trying to be funny, or what?”

Faramir ducked his head. “What are you going to do with me?” he repeated.

Shagrat paused, staring at Faramir where he sat, for a long time. If he had met his gaze, the young man might have seen something very like pity in the Orc’s expression. “You and me are going to carry on just as we have been doing,” Shagrat replied at length. “What I told you’s come from the top. The Snaga who found you won’t hear anything for a while, maybe never, if I can keep a lid on it.”

Shagrat’s reassurances hadn’t sounded particularly convincing, least of all to the Orc himself. But despite this, in the spirit of carrying on just as they had been doing, or perhaps because he felt he had something to prove, Shagrat dropped to his knees in front of Faramir, coaxed him into a state of abandoned arousal, and then proceeded to service him orally with every bit of the consummate skill, talent and expertise that, Faramir would later realise to his shame, he had already begun to take for granted from the Orc. When it was over Shagrat rose to his feet – a little more breathlessly and unsteadily than usual, perhaps, preparing to make his customary exit.

Faramir caught hold of him as he went past, stepping in close and snaking one arm around the astonished Uruk’s waist. He had already decided to do his best to try and please Shagrat. It was, as Faramir argued to himself, the least he could do, to try and repay Shagrat for services rendered – as it were – and it would probably help keep him on side. Of course focussing on this also made it easier for Faramir to overlook the fact that for some time now, he had secretly been longing to do something like this. 

Faramir pulled Shagrat with him down to the floor, persuading him to rest on his side. He could feel Shagrat’s erection butting through the leather of his long tunic, and he ran his hand over it, rubbing appreciatively, as Shagrat had so often done to him. Shagrat drew back immediately, muttering under his breath that he wasn’t fit to be handled, much. Undaunted, Faramir persisted, pulling aside the various layers of clothing and slipping his hands up Shagrat’s naked thighs.

“Gently,” Shagrat hissed, “careful! I’ve got – “

Faramir breathed out in surprise. His hands on the Uruk’s groin had encountered the evidence which told him that someone, or more likely, some people – given the extent of the damage - had in the past been neither particularly careful, nor gentle with Shagrat.

“- quite a bit of scar tissue in places,” Shagrat finished, lamely. He didn’t pull away from Faramir again, but didn’t draw any closer either.

Even so, the Orc was still terribly aroused - his member was absolutely rigid, standing out right-angled from his body, leaking streams of clear fluid, and he gasped frantically as Faramir closed his hands around him. In that state he couldn’t possibly have lasted long, and he didn’t. Faramir slicked his fingers with his own spittle and used it to give Shagrat some of the additional lubrication he obviously needed, as carefully, mindful of hurting him, Faramir pulled the Uruk’s too-tight, tattered foreskin back and forth over the head of his stiff, throbbing cock. Accomplished as Shagrat’s sexual technique was, the Orc was clearly unused to receiving this kind of attention, and he came, shuddering, not making a sound, after only three or four quick, firm strokes.

Shagrat had closed his eyes when Faramir began manipulating him, and he kept them closed for some time after he’d ejaculated. When he opened them again, he stared at Faramir speechlessly, looking shocked, bewildered and not a little panicked. All traces of his usual morose defensiveness and cynicism were gone, and the young man felt sorry to see how easily, and over such a little thing he had been so completely undone. On an impulse, he brought his face close to Shagrat’s, and planted a quick, chaste kiss on the Uruk’s mouth.

He didn’t taste of sunshine. His lips were neither full nor soft, and they were not flavoured with strawberries. He’d bitten them through when he’d climaxed, his fangs ripping ragged tears into the thin flesh, and his mouth, as Faramir kissed him, had the dark iron taste of blood. He smelled of it too – and more strongly of rusty metal, leather and sweat, a suite of rangy odours that blended themselves together with the forceful scents of his skin and scalp into something that was just, purely, essence of Shagrat. That had become oddly familiar, even appealing, and beyond anything else at that point, Faramir found to his surprise that wanted to keep the Orc near him – as close as he possibly could be, in fact. Daringly, he reached up and tangled his hand into Shagrat’s snarl of long, unkempt locks and held his head in place as he used his tongue very tentatively, to explore the inside of the Uruk’s mouth. Shagrat had not been kissed much before either, and at first as Faramir deepened his kisses, he kept himself rigid and tense, his fists clenched tightly in front of him, obviously having little idea what he should do. He was a quick learner however and was soon kissing back, with ever-increasing confidence. They spent some time spooning together, the Uruk responding so enthusiastically to whatever the young man did to him that it was soon clear to Faramir that from Shagrat’s point of view, he really couldn’t do a thing wrong.

It was an intensely appealing thought to Faramir and he worked his way downwards, kissing and biting at Shagrat’s throat and neck. Below his collarbone, in contrast with the weather-beaten, roughened hide that covered his hands and face and the other exposed portions of his body, his skin was soft, supple, and was in places every bit as smooth, warm and yielding as Faramir’s own. Faramir was struck by an immediate and undeniable urge to find out what the rest of Shagrat was like. He unlaced the ties at the front of Shagrat’s tunic, and then encouraged Shagrat to remove it, together with his breastplate, his other armour, and then all the rest of his various layered garments until at last the Orc was before him, quite unclothed. 

Faramir gaped at him. The dim lighting in the Tower, which hid many of the superficial imperfections that marred Shagrat’s body and face might well have played its part, but Faramir found to his astonishment that Shagrat, naked, was a surprisingly enticing sight. His long, clean limbs were attractively-proportioned and though he lacked much of the hulking brawn that characterised most other Uruks, Faramir realised that Shagrat’s muscles were in their way just as well-developed, his height and his much leaner frame largely belying his very obvious physical strength. The Orc’s chest and lower body were quite devoid of hair - like his face, which was beardless as an Elf’s, and he held himself with, if not Elf-like grace, exactly - for fierce apprehension and wary mistrustfulness were all too apparent in his posture – certainly with some innate sense of self-possession, if nothing else.

Without taking his eyes off the Orc for a moment, Faramir quickly unpacked his blanket roll, and spread it out on the floor between them. He lay down and pulled Shagrat after. The Uruk still was obviously in two minds about joining Faramir on his makeshift couch, and looked ready to bolt. With newfound confidence, the kind of feeling he had never before experienced, Faramir insisted, and drew Shagrat down beside him.

They lay, face-to-face, Faramir’s body pressed full-length, tight against Shagrat’s, and he gasped deliciously into the Orc’s open mouth while he held him close, kissing him. The warmth of their bodies coalesced into those two key points of contact between them, the place where their lips were fixed, panting breath to breath in scalding hot kisses, then lower, where they ground their hips together, moving themselves languorously, one against the other.

Faramir – without caring what would happen later on that day, or even tomorrow – had urged Shagrat to take things further. But the Orc, in some respects, retained a terrible air of raw inexperience, amounting almost to virginity, even, about him, and admitted that he hadn’t much idea how to go about that, without severely hurting himself, or Faramir, both. So Faramir contented himself with encouraging Shagrat to thrust himself into the channel presented by Faramir’s pressed-together thighs, and though the intensity of his own climax, when at last it came, did not perhaps quite compare with the heights it had reached when the Orc had taken him and manipulated him in his mouth, the happiness and satisfaction he felt more than compensated for that, for he knew that when they had come together, at last Shagrat had felt his own pleasure and gratification in some measure too. 

The Captain stared at him, his whole heart and soul in his eyes, still dumbstruck, too frightened to speak. He flinched away only a very little from Faramir when the young man reached out to caress him, and seeing it, Faramir sighed out, affectionately, exasperatedly. Shagrat was clearly more used to the rough-and-tumble aspects of physical contact and to cover the Uruk’s confusion, Faramir, obligingly, began to manhandle him over onto his back. When he’d gotten Shagrat into the correct position, he drew himself closer, and rested his head on the Orc’s chest.

“That’s better…..Shagrat, love,” he muttered without thinking, as he drifted into sleep.


	8. Daring getaway

Shagrat wasn’t a creature who often troubled to do anything carefully or quietly. And yet as he dressed himself in the dark before dawn, he winced at every clink of his mail shirt against his sword-belt, and at each scuff of his iron boots against the floor. Goldilocks was still sleeping, and that would give Shagrat the time he needed to complete a most unwelcome errand. The Orc himself had woken some time earlier, to find Faramir’s head pillowed against his shoulder, with the young man’s arm draped comfortably across his chest and a bitter, white-hot rage had hit him, as he realised what his duty would have him do. 

He told himself he’d always planned to hand Goldilocks over to the big Bosses eventually but still, deep in his black heart, he wondered what might have been if circumstances hadn’t conspired to force his hand. It didn’t bear thinking about however, and stealing a last glance at Faramir, lying warm and tousled in his sleep, Shagrat made his way across his room to the stairway and began the downward climb in silence. It was still early enough, he thought. It ought to be all right.

Faramir stirred fitfully, registering in his sleep that the warm, solid – if malodorous – bulk of Shagrat, against which he’d been resting quite contentedly, had moved itself out of their shared bed roll. He came awake a short while later, to find the Uruk crouched down a short distance away, watching him intently in the grey, pre-dawn light. 

“Get dressed. Take everything you might need,” Shagrat told him. “Then follow me. Keep quiet.”

“Where are we going?” Faramir whispered, as he pulled on his outer clothes and leggings.

“Downstairs,” Shagrat said, shortly.

Faramir felt as if his heart had stopped. “You’re taking me down to the barracks? To the other Orcs?”

“No,” Shagrat interrupted him impatiently, “I’ve sent - I mean, the main garrison’s already out. I’m taking you downstairs to the side door. There’s a secret entrance that I – I may have forgotten to tell you about. The coast is clear. I’ve just been down to check.”

In silence they made their way down the spiralling staircase and through the familiar Uruk barrack room, which was, as Shagrat had said, presently unoccupied. Shagrat exited the barracks by a side door, which Faramir had noticed before but which had always been barred shut and locked. Behind the door another narrow flight of steps descended into a small, brightly lit chamber – the other entrance to the Tower that Shagrat had been speaking about.

Shagrat went on ahead, hurrying down the steps but then stopped short in the doorway, thrusting Faramir back on to the stairs behind him. In the anteroom ahead of them were waiting a number of Orcs and Uruks, plus a massive creature, that stood twice as tall as an Uruk and was brawnier than any four of them combined. The beast was drooling copiously. It had tiny, idiot eyes and wore a leading-chain draped around its neck. This was a cave troll, a fearsome kind of creature that Faramir had heard about, but never before seen in the flesh. 

“What’s this? Deputation?” Shagrat barked out to the Orcish Company.

‘That’s that Tark, what the big bosses is all looking for, innit?” one of the smaller Orcs squealed.

“Shut it, you,” the largest Uruk told the Orc, clouting it heavily on the shoulder. “Keep your mouth shut unless you’re spoken to, maggot.” He looked eagerly at Shagrat. “It is though, isn’t it, Shagrat? This one,” – he shoved the small Orc forwards - “says he was part of the patrol that picked the Tark up in Ithilien. He reckons you’ve been keeping him, these three weeks past.”

Shagrat shrugged, nonchalantly.

“It must be him,” the lead Uruk insisted.

“Must it?”

“Is it him or isn’t it?” the lead Uruk demanded, his limited store of patience evidently having become exhausted.

“I don’t know,” Shagrat growled. His head dropped aggressively and he narrowed his eyes. “Is there a prize?”

“Come on now, Shagrat,” the lead Uruk said. “Orders are orders. You’ve had your fun, but you’ll hand that Tark over right now, if you know what’s good for you. Or we’ll be taking him, fair and square!”

“Take him, would you, Vashnek? I’d like to see you try. This Tark is my Tark, I tell you!” Shagrat howled murderously. “He’s mine!”

“You can shout about it all you like, but you know it’ll come to nothing in the end.”

With one practised movement, Shagrat unsheathed both his side-weapons, then tossed the blade he held in his left hand to Faramir. He caught the heavy, notch-bladed, scimitar, at the same time as Shagrat was jumping feet-first off the stairs, into the waiting company. The Captain used the sword in his right hand to hack through the neck of the patrol Orc who’d spoken up earlier, then swung it haphazardly back and forth, clearing a rough semicircle ahead of him, as the smaller Orcs skittered backwards to get out of his way. Stunned by his sudden attack, they seemed incapable of mounting much of a defence, and he fought his way through their ranks, stabbing and gouging indiscriminately.

“I’ll take the door,” Shagrat shouted to Faramir, “we mustn’t let any of them past.”

“Traitorous scum!” Captain Vashnek bellowed out, enraged. “I’ll see you drawn and quartered for this, Shagrat! Guards! Get him!”

The guards, collecting themselves at last, began to advance towards Shagrat, who had turned to meet them, his back against the exit door. He was outnumbered at least five to one, and though two or three of his adversaries were small snaga-Orcs, some of whom had already been wounded in his earlier assault, there was also a pair of full-size, hefty Mordor Uruks facing him. But Shagrat was not an Uruk Captain for nothing, and what his fighting technique lacked in sophistication and refinement was more than compensated for by the savage brutality of his style; as he cut and stabbed, every thrust was a move that aimed to disable or to kill, and in very little time he was circled about by a ring of fallen opponents.

Faramir had begun to rush to Shagrat’s side at the beginning of the fight, but had been brought up short by Captain Vashnek, who halted him with his sword, its blade turned flat against him. Steadfastly, the Uruk Captain blocked Faramir’s advance, using his weapon, his fists and his brawny bulk to halt the Gondorian’s progress. Though Faramir attacked him desperately, it was clear that he was reluctant in the extreme to seriously injure the young man, for all Vashnek’s feints and parries were defensive manoeuvres. It was clear that he planned to capture Faramir alive.

As if bemused by the skirmishes going on all around it, the Uruk-patrol’s cave troll had been standing stock still in the centre of the room since the start of the conflict. It blinked foolishly, watching, as another Uruk despatched by Shagrat, the last of his adversaries, went crashing to the floor. 

“Cave troll!” Vashnek cried over his shoulder, “You! Finish the traitor! Spit him! Do it now!”

Slowly and deliberately the troll turned to face Shagrat head on, paused, then began plodding towards him. Seizing the moment of distraction provided as Vashnek glanced back to check on the troll’s progress, Faramir was finally able to deliver a mortal wound to the Captain, and sliced through the side of the Uruk’s throat. Vashnek, however, did not stop fighting at once, and resolutely holding his neck-injury shut with his fingers, he continued blocking and parrying, at last aiming a vicious series of sword-cuts at Faramir in spite of his declining strength, even as he began to stumble and fall.

The cave troll, still lumbering towards Shagrat, had drawn back its weapon, a short-staved but heavy spear-pike. It launched the weapon at him at the same time as Faramir’s scimitar, hurled with all his strength, hit the troll in the back of the head, neatly splitting its scalp, the blade cleaving deep into the skull beneath.

“Shagrat!” Faramir cried, as Vashnek’s bulk finally toppled down, crushing him. Breathlessly he heaved the Uruk away as he rolled onto his side. His entire field of view was taken up with the cave troll, which had fallen in front of him and he struggled to get past, to find out what had happened to his Captain.

Feeling awash with relief, Faramir saw that Shagrat was still upright, although he seemed to be holding an odd, unnaturally lop-sided stance. Faramir blinked across at him, still in a daze. The Uruk was standing on tiptoes, his left shoulder hiked up so painfully high that his whole body appeared to be dangling down from it. To his horror, Faramir realised that the blow from the cave-troll’s spear had lifted Shagrat partway off his feet, running him through with such force that despite his armour, it had penetrated his body and driven the spearhead deep into the wooden door behind him. Shagrat had been left pinned against it, the pikestaff sticking into his shoulder just below the collarbone. 

“Goldilocks!” Shagrat gasped, “help me!”

Faramir thanked whatever higher powers there might be for the fact that Uruks seemed quite resilient to being killed. Shaking his head vigorously to clear it, Faramir got up and stumbled over to where Shagrat was impaled against the door. He closed both hands around the pike-shaft prior to removing it, and braced his feet. He glanced up briefly at Shagrat, confirming that he had steadied himself.

The Uruk met his gaze, beseechingly, desperately.

Faramir hesitated. Shagrat was pinned against the doorway that was the concealed side entrance, and now the unguarded exit, from the Tower of Cirith Ungol. Faramir stepped back from Shagrat and released his hold of the pike. It was his duty to escape.

“Goldilocks?” Shagrat croaked at him in disbelief. “What are you doing? Goldilocks?” his tone became more urgent as Faramir, stooping down to arm himself with a selection of fallen weapons dropped by the Tower guard, moved out of his line of sight. “Goldilocks! Faramir! Help me - I’m hurt!”

It took all Faramir’s strength to heave the prostrate cave-troll far enough aside for him to be able to force the door ajar. He tried to swing the door open, and with it Shagrat, as smoothly as possible, but without much success.

“Faramir!” Shagrat cried, an edge of panic in his voice. “What are you doing? Don’t do that – don’t!” His feet scrabbled against the floor for a moment as he felt the door swinging him forwards and he tried to keep standing. “Stop, won’t you! Please, stop it! Stop! Faramir, I thought that you and me, we –“ off-balance, he lost his footing, and let out a horrible, agonised scream, as the weight of his body descended on the wound in his shoulder.

Anger at his own betrayal of Shagrat made Faramir cruel, and he rounded on him, thumping his fist down with full force just shy of the Uruk’s head. Shagrat swiped at him ineffectually with his free right claw, shuddering, as Faramir’s blow reverberated through the wooden panelling of the door and the shaft of the pike. Faramir unsheathed one of the daggers he had taken from the guards and held it pressed against Shagrat’s throat. 

“I should kill you for that,” Faramir spat at him. “Anything you imagined to exist between us - I forsook my own honour, to survive, and no more than that. Remember it.” 

The single, stricken look of disbelief the Uruk shot him made Faramir pause. “You thought we – what, exactly?” he said. 

“Nothing, Goldilocks,” Shagrat panted in anguish, hiding his face. “I didn’t think anything,” he muttered weakly. “Nothing. It was - nothing.” His head dropped further, then lolled onto his chest as he sagged downwards, in a dead faint. 

Faramir stared him in consternation, torn between the necessity of making his getaway and his desire to help. Yes, it was his duty to escape, but not to torment Shagrat, whether he was an enemy or not. With some care, Faramir set about trying to release him. The pike-head proved to be too heavily embedded behind Shagrat for Faramir to be able to move it, and at length in desperation he resorted to sliding the Uruk bodily forwards, inch by painful inch, off the handle end of the pike. At last he was free from the thick wooden pole, but Faramir had no idea how much additional damage he might have done to the awful, ragged wound in Shagrat’s chest. It was bleeding copiously, and Faramir hurriedly applied a rough field dressing, made from filthy strips of fabric torn from the clothing of one of the fallen guards. He leaned his weight on it, having to use a great deal of pressure to staunch the flow. At this unwelcome treatment, Shagrat groaned softly, his sparse eyelashes fluttering as he regained consciousness. Seeing Faramir leaning over him, he started back violently, his right hand clawing for a weapon with which to defend himself.

Feeling an inexplicable degree of resentment on witnessing Shagrat’s new-found fear of him, Faramir straightened up, and quickly kicked the few knives and spearheads that had fallen near to where Shagrat was lying out of his reach. Then he knelt down again. The Orc, who was panting and trembling uncontrollably, as if suffering from the effects of an emotional shock, still would not look at him, and Faramir was a little disappointed, as he had truly believed the Uruk to be made of sterner stuff. He reached for Shagrat, and to the Uruk’s great surprise, began to secure the makeshift bandage in place. When it was done he turned his back on Shagrat abruptly, making ready to leave.

He was almost at the door when Shagrat called after him.

“Goldilocks, wait,” Shagrat said. “When you go. You have to look out for a narrow stair. Torech Ungol. The way is high. Very steep. It’ll take you out if you stick to it, and follow it up and over, but that path is guarded. At the height of the pass, you must take care.”

Faramir eyed him sceptically. “You’re telling me the way out? How can you expect me to believe that?”

“Listen to me, you fool!” Shagrat interrupted him, desperately, “I wouldn’t lie, I tell you, not to you. Blades and side arms won’t help. Take a torch –“ he gestured at a number of unlit fire-brands that were set in wall-brackets around the room – “no. Take more than one. Don’t light them till you reach the top-most point. Not before. Then get through, as fast as you can. There’s –“ he broke off.

There’s what? Faramir asked him.

Something it was better that Faramir didn’t know about, Shagrat told him, which was not much of a help. Further than that, however, he refused point blank to elaborate. 

“Get going,” Shagrat urged him, “the call’s gone up. They’ll all be down here, in a minute.”

“Shagrat, I – “ Faramir began, but then thought better of it. The things he wanted to tell the Uruk were perhaps better left unsaid. “Goodbye, Shagrat.”

“Right,” the Orc muttered faintly, as unconsciousness overtook him, once again. “I’ll – I’ll see you.” 

But of course he hadn’t seen him again. That Shagrat was an Orc effectively cancelled out the fact that he had saved Faramir’s life twice, as no good deed, no matter how selfishly, or selflessly motivated, could possibly compensate for the plain fact of his unspeakable origins. On his return to Ithilien, after a journey that had been arduous, and had taken two, otherwise uneventful days, the young Gondorian had been wise enough not to speak about his experiences in the Land of Shadow to anyone. And for years Faramir had tried to put all thoughts of Shagrat from him - with varying degrees of success.


	9. Soft touch

Cradling the Uruk’s corpse by the side of the alehouse midden, there in the pouring rain, at last Faramir wept openly, unashamedly, for Shagrat. As a first love, he had been unconventional; unacceptable; completely beyond the pale, but in the end he had proved his mettle through if nothing else, the single-minded constancy of his attachment. That the gift of Shagrat’s affections would not have been particularly desirable or welcome to most people was not the point. He had given himself to Faramir wholeheartedly, and that was all. Tenderly, Faramir smoothed Shagrat’s lank, grey hair away from his face and kissed his scabrous forehead, his tears running down Shagrat’s ravaged cheeks and into the bleeding wounds on the Uruk’s neck.

Faramir saw that his tears were falling into the bleeding wounds, the still-bleeding wounds, on Shagrat’s neck. The Uruk servants of Mordor, as he should well have remembered, could prove quite difficult to kill.

“Shagrat?” Faramir said tentatively, his heart in his mouth. He thought he saw the slightest flicker of a response.

“Shagrat, stop it,” Faramir said, and shook him, gently, insistently. “Shagrat. Stop it. Stop it now. Stop playing dead, Shagrat.”

After a long, long pause, Shagrat opened his one remaining, primrose-yellow eye. “I said you never were the marrying type,” he muttered faintly, and closed it again.

*******

Beside himself with immoderate joy, Faramir gazed down at the prize he supported in his arms. Shagrat, still wrapped in Faramir’s cape, was balanced precariously on the saddle ahead of him, leaning back against his shoulder, dozing as they rode. All that was visible of the object of Faramir’s affection was a chewed-off pointed ear and a mottled expanse of flaking scalp. He leaned his face against it, happily breathing in the familiar smell of Shagrat – although, at the same time he was aware that there was also a clear, quiet part of his mind, set apart, and weirdly detached from the turmoil of passionate emotions that were surging through his breast. That part of him was wondering, serenely, if on some level whether he hadn’t - as more than one of his royal aides had insolently suggested - run quite barking mad.

Oh, there had been a certain amount of kerfuffle, back in the town, all right. Faramir’s horse, for example, had not wanted Shagrat anywhere near it, and had shied and pranced frantically, behaving almost as outrageously as the rest of Faramir’s retinue had, when they’d realised that their royal lord and master was deadly serious in his plan to acquire a stray, ailing Orc. Shagrat, showing a flash of his old, uncompromising military spirit, had subdued the horse by grabbing it by the ears and snarling into its face until it had quietened somewhat – but as he had fainted clean away again immediately afterwards, this strenuous effort had cost him dearly, and done nothing to substantiate his reputation for ferociousness. And Shagrat’s prospective owner, the town Councillor, had also begun to complain vociferously about his ‘rights to the Orc’s carcass,’ which he said he’d paid good money for, until Shagrat, reviving in Faramir’s arms, challenged him to -

“Blinkin’ well come and take it off me, then!” At which the Councilman (instead of ‘routing the Orc,’ as might have been expected, given his earlier opinions on the subject) had scurried back a full twenty feet and hidden himself behind a stack of ale-casks. 

Faramir eventually negotiated - by flinging it at the man’s feet - a fair trade with the Councillor; his bejewelled dagger for the Uruk, an arrangement which seemed to please all parties, with the possible exception of Shagrat, who had stared open-mouthed at Faramir, for some reason rendered temporarily speechless by this turn of events. That had given Faramir the opportunity to heft the Orc up onto his saddle, and make a hasty exit. 

Then they had ridden back to the main road and had been following it for some time. Shagrat was not by any means a natural horseman but eventually, weakened as he was and exhausted as he had been by his earlier exertions, he had settled down. After falling into a fitful sleep, he had come to rest back quite unconsciously against Faramir, though the first occasion of his waking had been notable for the violence with which he had started up and pulled himself away, as if he was expecting cruelty and punishment. He woke again, jerking forwards reflexively, and it was only Faramir’s left arm, which rested in a protective hold across the Uruk’s chest, that prevented him from falling off the horse entirely. After a moment he sat back again, uneasily.

“This horse of yours,” muttered Shagrat. “I don’t know a lot about horse flesh, but it’s a battle-charger, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

Shagrat made a mournful noise in the back of his throat. “I was afraid of that.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Well, first off, you threw away your wedding knife. And then – then there’s the thing with this blasted great horse.”

Faramir asked him, what about the horse.

“You – you do realise you rescued me off of it.”

Faramir had some small idea what Shagrat was implying, but he did not reply.

“Some might say you revived me with a kiss and then –“ Shagrat broke off. Faramir wasn’t certain, but there seemed to be a slight flush of heightened, ruddy colour showing across Shagrat’s sallow, sunken cheeks. He wondered if it was even possible for Orcs to blush.

“Some might say that after you kissed me, you swept me up and carried me off on a white horse,” Shagrat blurted out. He clearly was extremely embarrassed. “I’m not saying that’s how it was, but that’s how it might have seemed. To some people.”

“Your point being…?”

“And, on top of all that, it’s what those lackeys were calling you. ‘Your Highness this, your Highness that.’ You’re a Prince,” Shagrat choked out faintly. “Think about what you’ve done. It just doesn’t look right. Not for a man in your position.”

“You must realise, Shagrat, that you are in no position to complain about any of that. You yourself used to be shut up in a Tower, held by dark enchantments, and I think you’ll find that under the circumstances, a Prince is about the only kind of person who’s ever likely to be a suitable companion for you. This state of affairs,” Faramir added, “isn’t entirely without precedent.”

Shagrat did not appear to have a ready answer for that, and contented himself with scowling down at the ground for a while as they rode. “What happens now?” he asked at length.

“Shagrat, this is the point at which we ride away together, off into the sunset,” Faramir told him. “It’s what you have to do, in tales where love surmounts every obstacle, conquering all and so forth. It’s terribly traditional, you know.” 

“Love?” Shagrat muttered under his breath, incredulously. “Tradition? Sunset?” He paused for a long moment. “But, Goldilocks, I’m an Orc. It’s not gone noon yet. And it’s raining.”

Faramir glanced back over his shoulder to where the rest of his party were deliberately hanging back, riding at some distance behind them. He gazed down at Shagrat, studying the numerous scars and blemishes on the Orc’s blind side, wondering how such a fell creature could possibly be expected to join the Royal household in Ithilien. And what of Eowyn? Faramir’s wife had not yet formalised their permanent separation – what if she experienced a change of heart, and decided to return to him after all? But then, Faramir thought of how he’d felt when he thought he’d lost Shagrat, yet again, and he tightened his hold round the Uruk’s waist quite unconsciously, pulling him closer in against his chest, squeezing him, until at last the old Captain was forced to wheeze out in protest.

“Trivial details,” Faramir told him, decisively. They rode on into the brightening morning.

********


End file.
